Latest News Updates

Real Nappy Event

Not specially linked to WasteWise but just for information, Sedgefield Borough Council is holding a series of real nappy events at Ceddesfield Hall, Sedgefield Village on 18th June, 17th September &14th January 2006, from 11am-2pm. Events include a creche, face painting and refreshments. More more information contact our old colleague Ruth Clayton at riclayton@sedgefield.gov.uk

Schools and Charities Sceme in Sunderland.

Sara supported the scheme for the fifth year working with another five schools, other schools were supported by a variety of agencies. This led to a successsful celebration event at Sunderland Winter Gardens which highlighted that huge amounts of goods had been given to charity shops in the city and they have rised many thousands of pounds for their good causes.

Another Change in Structure

From 1st February 2005, Sara is now part time on WasteWise and part time on School Grounds covering Joanne Stukins' maternity leave. In September when Joanne returns the roles will be reassessed.

Another WasteWise Update

As from the 1st October Sara Nixon is now the full time dedicated WasteWise Coordinator. So if you have any questions or would like help with any matters to do with waste contact Sara on s.nixon100@durhamlea.org.uk or 0191 373 9799.

Rich Hurst will still have an overview and management role for the projects at The EWE Centre but has taken on an expanded role to develop regional working on ESD amongst the many organsiations that support schools.

WasteWise Update

Well we're still here! Sara and Rich have been very busy this summer term working primarily on the Derwentside Paper Recycling Scheme we mentionned a while ago. Also we were involved in Eco-Rangers for the fifth year working with Year 5 pupils from Sunderland schools along with many other agencies and Sunderland City Council departments. Over 30 schools and 1500 children attended.

No news on new funding yet but we are planning for next term and in one form or another WasteWise will continue. When we know more we'll let you know.

WasteWise Funding

As some of you may be aware Landfill Tax funding criteria has changed so the County Durham Environmental Trust is no longer able to fund WasteWise. The project currently has funding to enable it to continue until Chrisatmas this year. At present we are investigating future funding sources and we will keep you informed on how things are progressing.

Projects for Spring term 2004

WasteWise has agreed to undertake some consultancy work for Groundwork West Durham this term. Two projects are underway they are:

Wear Valley Pride Campaign working with Coundon Primary and Willington Primary on issues affecting their local environment

Derwentside Paper Recycling Project. Working with Groundwork West Durham who are collecting the paper and Derwentside District Council, WasteWise is co-ordinating the project which will eventually be offered to all schools in the district.

Contact Details

The Esh Winning Eco-Learning Centre is now operational our details are:

The EWE Centre, Esh Winning Primary School, The Wynds, Esh Winning, Co. Durham, DH7 9BE.

Tel: 0191 373 9799.

Fax: 0191 373 6477.

E-mail: r.hurst100@durhamlea.org.uk or s.nixon100@durhamlea.org.uk

New WasteWise Officer

Sara Nixon has joined the team as the new WasteWise Project Officer. Sara joins the Project from her previous post as a primary school teacher in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. She has also worked at some environmental education centres around the country. The Project will use these new skills to develop the resources and class room delivery of the project.

Ruth Leaves The WasteWise Project

After a very successful 2.5 years with the Project Ruth Clayton has moved onto pastures new as a Community Recycling Officer with Sedgefield Borough Council. The post is to develop a new project in partnership with Groundwork East Durham. We will continue to work together in the future and we wish her all the best in her new job..

The EWE Centre

The School Grounds-WasteWise team are about to move to a new base at Esh Winning Primary School. The base to be known as The EWE Centre (Esh Winning Eco- LearningCentre) will be the first permanent base for the two projects and will lead to fantastic new developments during 2003. More information will be available in the new year but the new address from January 1st 2003 is:

The EWE Centre, Esh Winning Primary School, The Wynds, Esh Winning, Co. Durham, DH7 9BE. The new telephone number will follow shortly.

Schools and Charities in Sunderland (SACS)

Ruth has been working with five schools during November supporting them with this annual scheme. The SACS initiative is co-ordinated by the Sustainability Team at Sunderland City Council and highlights the message of reusing materials and the valuable work of charities.

Town End Primary, Ryhope Infants, Farringdon Primary and New Penshaw Primary are linking with Barnado's; St. Leonards Primary are linking with St. Cuthberts Care. In the New Year will will have all the results in and let you know how much was collected and how much money was raised.

Darlington Paper Recycling Scheme

Thanks to additional funding from CDENT to Darlington Borough Council, we were able to offer paper recycling bins to 30 schools in the Borough. Each school had at least one awareness raising assembly and a pack or resources to launch the project in each school. WasteWise delivered the majority of the assemblies which kept us busy throughout October and November. The paper is being collected by PEAR Recycling of Newton Aycliffe.

As you are all aware, we don't update this site as often as we should, but we've finally gotten around to overhauling things a little bit and adding some new text and news. Hope you find it interesting.

Project Update

Ruth and I have been working hard lately on a number of in school projects. Wormeries and composters seem to be 'In' at the moment and we have been working on three different types. The first at Wolsingham Primary School was produced with all the children from the Year 2 class, the class decided to build it out of plastic so we adapted a large plastic case to meet their design brief. The second was built at Ox Close Nursery in Spennymoor. The nursery wanted this to take all of the compostible waste from the school garden as well from the staff room. So we designed this out of old pallets donated by Electrolux of Spennymoor. It was built lower than a typical composting wormery so that the children (under 5 years old) could reach to put things in, the children helped with the digging. The final composting wormery is being built with Year 6 pupils from Plains Farm Primary in Sunderland. This is situated in the school garden and has again been built out of pallets, but is a different design and has been built by the children with WasteWise's help.

Ollie Recycles

WasteWise has been working schools to develop using the fantastic CD-Rom Ollie Recycles within classroom working and using it to develop ICT based work. Some fantastic work has been produced please click here to see some of the great work developed by the pupils involved. As a celebration we held an afternoon event at the Management Development Centre in Durham where some of the participating pupils came along for a free lunch and a chance to beam there websites onto the large screen in the main lecture theatre in the centre.

Yellow Pages Recycling

This project was in partnership with Sedgefield Borough Council and was a huge success. Eighteen schools in the Borough acted as recycling points for old yellow pages. Thye winning school was Tudhoe Moor nursery in Spennymoor that collected over 1000 of them and as such won £500 from Directory Recycling to be spent on enviornmental improvements in th school. Ferryhill Station Primary collected more over 1100 but the competition was based on a per pupil basis. The school however were given £250 from the Borough Councxil for their hard work.

Four schools worked with artists from PERCY, the scrapstore in Middlebrough. They designed and built characters from the Wizard of Oz. These were then displayed at Foreman's Recycling as part of a celebration event plus all schools involved received a copy of the Wizard of Oz on video.

Story Sacks

WasteWise has been working with the Going for Green partnership in Sedgefield Borough to help to develop a Story Sack for Early Years children specifically around the issue of waste. The book that was chosen was 'Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish' a classic book. The sacks and their contents have been made by parents and volunteers on a course run by East Durham and Houghall College, the sacks also include two non fiction books, a game, activities, a story mat and an audio tape of the story. The sacks were launched at Sedgefield Library on October 3rd. This was also the regional launch of Waste Month.

Darlington SACS

Following the success of the Schools and Charities in Sunderland (SACS) Project in Sunderland, Darlington Borough Council got in on the act with WasteWise. The Project ran during October which was National Waste Month and linked schools and charirites together so that schools collected goods on behalf of their linked charity. The charities then collected the goods from the school, weighed them and gave the school an idea of how much money was raised by the sale of the items. The school learnt more about the work of the charity and hopefully children will use the charity shops more, both in terms of taking things to them for sale and also to buy goods. In total 12 schools got involved linking with 7 different charities and collected over 2 tonnes worth of goods that were sold through charity shops in the town, a fantastic achievement, well done to all concerned.

Aluminium Can Recycling

Following the success of the Christmas card recycling scheme in Bishop Auckland last year that collected over 4 tonnes of card, WasteWise is once again linking with the Butterwick Hospice this time to collect aluminium cans through schools. Each school involved will receive an internal wheelie bin to collect the cans and a can crusher built by trainees on a New Deal scheme. If your school is within Bishop Auckland and you're not already registered please contact us.

Christmas Card Recycling

Yes its that time of year, if you're not already involved in a scheme and you'd like to get your school involved in this initiative then get in touch with the office and we'll let you know what's available in your area.

Inkjet and Laserjet Cartridge and Mobile Phone Recycling

Ruth has been researching what different services are available to schools and has produced a factsheet click here to read it.