Caithness pupils Promote the Recycling Message

As part of a drive to encourage everyone in the Highlands to recycle more of their waste, the Council’s Waste Awareness team have recently visited 13 primary schools in the Caithness area to raise awareness of the Reduce, Reuse and Recycle message.

At the schools pupils and staff took part in a number of sessions discussing how much waste we all produce and what can be done to minimise and recycle this waste. The sessions all finished off with pupils playing a giant recycling floor game which allowed them to have a bit of fun whilst putting into practice what they had learned during the day.

Agnieszka Kalemba from the Council’s Waste Awareness team was delighted with the response from staff and pupils at all the Caithness schools they visited.  She said:  “We were very encouraged by the depth of knowledge and the enthusiasm pupils showed towards recycling and waste minimisation. The workshops we ran were a fun way of promoting what we all have to do to protect our environment.”

The workshops, trialled in Caithness, have been such a success that the team now hope they can be rolled out to help spread the recycling message to other communities throughout the Highlands.

The Highland Council’s Chairman of TEC Services, Councillor John Laing said:  “Thanks to the efforts of everyone in Highland, our recycling rate has improved dramatically from around 2% in 2003 to just over 30% at present. However we have recently been set a number of challenging recycling targets aimed at improving our environment. These targets will not only require an expansion of the services the Council provides but more importantly will rely heavily on Highland residents increasing the use of the recycling facilities that are already in place.”

Information about Recycling facilities and services for the Highlands is available on the Councils website or by telephoning the Waste Awareness Team on 01349 868439.