Eco school ideas: 23 ways to make your school green
Organisations as big as schools can have a big impact on the environment. From the light bulbs in your classrooms to the rubbish put in your bins, there are lots of ways schools can make small improvements to reducing their carbon footprint. Add a few of them together and you start to make more than just a small contribution to a brighter future.
To help in your mission to go green at your school, we’ve compiled 25 easy ideas for an eco-school.
Simple eco-school ideas for a lower carbon footprint
1. Encourage good habits
A green school starts with good daily habits. With so many young feet trudging round the school each day, their impact on your efforts to be more eco-friendly can be huge. Encourage everyone at your school to uphold the very best practices, and those attitudes can quickly become infectious.
Little reminders round the school, like posters reminding to quick up litter or recycle their waste, can go a long way to getting the ball rolling.
2. Start a school compost
If you’ve got a school garden, nothing is more eco-friendly than treating it with your own food waste. Start a school compost and not only will you reduce waste but you’ll also do wonders for the plants in your garden. If you don’t have use for it in school, you can donate to a local allotment instead.
If you’re in need of some composting advice, the RHS have an excellent guide for schools on this topic.
3. Use recycled paper
No doubt your school gets through tonnes of paper. On top of making sure you are recycling it as much as you can, you can go green and make sure you’re buying recycled in the first place.
There are plenty of options out there for recycled paper, as well as classroom items like notepads.
4. Buy eco-friendly
The buying green revolution doesn’t have to stop at paper either. Today, there are green options for countless everyday school items. Here are just a few:
- Recycled sticky notes
- Recycled pencils
- Recycled card
- Recycled clipboards
- Recycled plastic wallets
- Zero Plastic Sellotape
5. Cut down on single use plastics
Another easy win comes in the form of single use plastics. As an individual, you can buy yourself a reusable water bottle and lunchbox. Encourage staff and pupils members to do the same too.
Beyond that, small changes like installing water foundations over vending machines (with single use plastic bottles in them) can instigate a change in habit across the school.
6. Start an eco-club
Raise the next generation of eco-warriors by starting a new after school club all about the environment. There’s plenty of fun stuff you have to excite and embolden the imagination of your pupils and teach them an important message at the same time.
They could help you out with of the other suggestions in this post, or:
- Help plant and grow seeds in the garden
- Craft bird feeders
- Take part in an eco-quiz
7. Bring in recycling bins
Recycling is one of the easiest and quickest wins any school can have when looking to cut their carbon footprint.
Make it as easy as possible for everyone in your school to comply by placing dedicated recycling bins around the school. Be sure to label them up or communicate to everyone exactly what you can and can’t put in them too.
8. …and make them more engaging
For younger kids, it might be worth decorating those recycling bins to make them more fun and engaging too. How about giving it some eyes and teeth to make a monster – they just love eating up all your unwanted plastics!
9. Bring the outdoors inside
Don’t let the outdoors be the only place for nice plants or other green spaces. Bring the outdoors inside and make for a much more pleasant environment.
This might not make a huge difference but making the place a little greener can help to add to the idea that school is a clean, environmentally friendly space. You’ll go some way to making the air cleaner too.
10. Become an official Eco-School
For those wanted a framework or official accreditation for the efforts to go green in schools, there is a project out there for you.
Eco-schools is a global project to drive positive environmental change in schools. At the end of the seven-step journey, schools can be an official Green Flag Eco-School and take part in their annual awards.
11. Recycle your batteries
No one likes to see batteries heading for landfill. Let teachers and parents know that your school is a recycling point for used-up batteries and ship them off to be reused.
12. Switch to LED bulbs
The cost of energy efficient lighting is coming down all the time, meaning it makes more and more sense to make the switch to LED bulbs.
The initial outlay might cost you some money in the short-term, but the savings year on year can be significant. In fact, research from UK Energy Watch says Primary schools could save as much as £3,600 every year (when combined with intelligent controls).
13. Replace power-hungry appliances
Go a step further than just lighting and turn your attention to the appliances you have around the school. The energy efficiency of dishwashers, ovens, washing machines and more improves by the year.
Use the energy efficiency labels (which are lettered A+++ to D) to hunt out the appliances that can cut down your electricity and water bills. One example comes with dishwashers, where research from Which? says that the difference in energy cost between the most and least efficient appliance amounts to nearly £30 a year.
14. Make a mural out of litter
Take all those dropped cans of pop, bottlecaps or plastic bottles and make something arty from it. Get creative and make a mural with an environmental message, all by using things that people have chucked away.
15. Make a school greenhouse
Take your efforts in the garden a step further and build your own greenhouse. These can be your typical glass structures, or they could lead on from the last point and be made from recycled materials.
Pinterest is the place to head for this type of thing. Just look at the RHS’ plastic bottle effort. It’d save your school plenty of money too!
16. Start a green team or eco-committee
You could tie this into the after-school club or head off in this direction instead. In the green team or eco-committee, you have to embody everything about going green. Monthly meetings can be held to brainstorm new ideas for going green in schools and reporting back on progress.
17. Teach positive environmental messages in class
One more for the teachers this one, but certainly something you can do ahead and encourage. Support your teachers in their efforts to spread a positive message by tying in efforts around the school to be more environmentally friendly. If they need specific resources or supplies, see what you can do to give them what they need.
18. Bring in a clothing recycling station
Another easy win for your school. Setup a clothing recycling station and communicate it to parents and staff. Let them bring their old, unused clothing in and donate it to a local charity.
19. Encourage more walking to school
For those that can, walking to school brings many benefits aside from a positive environmental impact. This can happen all year round but May 17th-21st may the best time to start as it’s national Walk to School Week.
Set a good example and leave your car at home for a few days. You’ll find plenty of ideas for encouraging others on the organiser’s website too.
20. Make your school meals eco-friendly
How do your school meals shape up on the environment? Do they include locally sourced ingredients, or are they shipped in a lorry from the other side of the country? See if you can support local businesses and bring some fresh local produce into your school meals.
21. Make a school trip to a recycling centre
Make a day of it by heading off to your local recycling centre. Waste is one of those areas where we can be incredibly ignorant of what happens to the things we chuck away. A school trip is the perfect opportunity to learn more about waste management and what we can do to lessen our environmental impact.
22. Communicate your efforts with parents
Don’t confine your efforts to the pupils and staff. Spread the good word of your new eco-efforts into the community. Get parents onboard and they could volunteer to help you out, or just continue promoting those positive habits at home.
23. Get everyone to buy in
As just one person, there is only so much you can do. Just like in wider society, it takes the efforts of everyone to instigate real change.
To that end, make sure you put a lot of your efforts into getting everyone onboard. Without teacher support, those good green habits will never filter down to the pupils.
The more the merrier!
