School's cultural competition clincher - 22 July 2010

School’s cultural competition clincher - 22 July 2010A local primary school has proved itself as the best in Merseyside’s recycling culture club.

Staff and pupils at Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Southport received a £150 prize from local recycling officers this week for creating art from recyclable materials, with the money going to their School Eco Committee.

The competition was coordinated by Liverpool-based performing arts company Black Box Creative Communities, with the winning cheque being supplied by Veolia Environmental Services.

Black Box received £4983.50 of funding last year from Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority (MWDA) and Veolia as part of MWDA’s Fund for Community Projects. Black Box used this money to create theatre performances and workshops to help raise awareness of the environmental motto ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ across seven schools in Merseyside. The result of these performances saw the children doing audits of their school’s waste and creating pieces of art – made just out of recyclable materials.

Out of the seven school art projects, Black Box judged Holy Family Catholic Primary to have come up with the best entry. Ian Moore, Artistic Director at Black Box Creative Communities CIC, said: “This school won because they demonstrated a great deal of effort and thought throughout all the elements of the project, the children were very enthusiastic and had great ideas.”

The cheque was presented to the pupils, teacher Mrs Carey and Head Teacher Mrs Louise Morton, who said: “The children really enjoyed the performances and workshops, and then learnt a lot about recycling through doing their waste audit and finally creating their pieces of art. They’re very pleased to have won!”

Carl Beer, Director of MWDA, said: “We’re delighted that our Community Fund has had an impact like this, and hope all of the children involved have learnt something they maybe didn’t know before and enjoyed themselves in the process.”

Alex Paterson, Director of Veolia Environmental Services in Merseyside, said: “This response to the campaign was fantastic and shows us that the children of Merseyside have a genuine thirst for learning about recycling and what happens once it is placed into your recycle bin at home. It is a wonderful achievement and we look forward to seeing how the money will benefit the school's recycling campaigns.”

Other projects from MWDA’s Community Fund include:

Bulky Bob’s Ltd - maximising the reuse and recycling potential of previously unwanted televisions and computer monitors.

North Birkenhead Development Trust - Waste Not Want Not workshops. Activities including re-use workshops and an end-of-week recycling fashion show and accompanying DVD.

Eco Glass - a creative glass re-use project including workshops for local people.

Live Wirral Wardens - reducing food waste through the promotion of vermi-composting (wormeries) in schools.

ENDS

Notes to editor:

Of the funding, £15k has been supplied by MWDA, with £5k coming from MWDA’s contractor Veolia Environmental Services.

MWDA is a local government body with nine elected members from the five constituent councils in Merseyside. It organises and manages disposal of all waste collected by the five councils and operates 14 Household Waste Recycling Facilities. www.merseysidewda.gov.uk

Media enquiries:

John Lally
PR & Communications Officer
0151 255 2568
John.lally@merseysidewda.gov.uk