A brief history

We have been recycling at Elmsett School in a serious way, since 1993 and I just love it! As a passive member of Friends of the Earth, I felt that this was a great opportunity for me to put my passion for all things environmental into practise in a more practical way. It was the right thing to do, at the right time and I had no idea that it would be so successful.
We began by supervising the village bottle bank and collecting aluminium cans. Then we were contacted by a local company that recycled cartridges. This was the beginning of a great recycling partnership that has lasted over the years and raised a huge amount of extra money for our small village school.
With help from Babergh District and Suffolk County Council, we altered the end of our playground to allow easy access to our new community recycling centre. People were able to put paper glass and textiles in our recycling banks and Babergh District Council paid us for the weight of the materials that were recycled. We celebrated our official opening in 1994.
Diverting "waste" from landfill sites, and turning trash into cash must be good. Between 1993 and 2003, before I retired from teaching, over £120,000.00 had been raised from all our recycling schemes and I gave up counting then! During that time our pupils learnt  about waste, recycling, and many other topics relating to caring for our environment. in fact they nagged their parents about throwing away items that could be recycled. 
Learning about sustainable lifestyles is a passport to our children's future.Raising funds, for me, was just a brilliant bonus.