World Water Day

Though World Water Day usually falls on March 22, Greenwood International School celebrated a little early this year.

On March 1 pupils were asked to bring in reusable bottles and a water-saving tip.

The idea was conjured up by the school's Eco Club as part of their ongoing eco-activities to help create awareness at school and at home.

Reusable bottles mean less plastic waste and if you are more mindful of the amount of water you waste when throwing half-filled bottles away, you are more likely not to waste.

The winning section of the school was the elementary side as only 5 per cent of the pupils brought in disposable bottles, followed by the kindergarten pupils, and finishing up with the high school pupils with 10 per cent.

The water saving tips were displayed in each of the student sections throughout the school.

Also, for our school's annual Environment Week which was held from March 18 until today, pupils brought in different recycling items from home every day.

The event is designed to link to the community and get families involved in reducing the community's carbon footprint.

On Sunday, they brought in plastic, bottles and on Monday they brought in paper and cardboard.

On Tuesday we collected various forms of e-waste and printer cartridges brought in by the pupils, which ties into the initiative our school has joined along with HP to collect and recycle all cartridges to save them from the landfill.

Yesterday was Green Day, where pupils wore green to school. We also had several eco-companies visit the school and pupils created eco-games and activities to raise awareness about our school's carbon footprint. Today the pupils will be bringing in clothes, shoes and bags that they wish to donate.

As an energy saving exercise, the pupils also had classes outside throughout the week. All the items collected for Environment Week will be collected by different companies we have sought to help us recycle the items.

Our school is one of the five pilot schools to take part in the HSBC Climate Initiative alongside the Emirates Wildlife Society and the World Wildlife Fund. The theme for the programme is reducing water, waste and energy.

As part of the initiative the school formed an eco-committee, comprised of an eco-president and vice-president for each section as well as an eco-ambassador for each class.

We have been given seed money by HSBC to increase our water and energy reduction by putting in water reducers and light sensors in our school corridors and bathrooms.

Mission and vision

The Eco Club has an eco-code representing our vision to reduce water, waste and energy and which has now been become the new mission and vision of our school.

To date the school has seen a 90 per cent reduction in waste, a 10 per cent reduction in energy and a 2 per cent reduction in water usage.

We hope that by sharing this with Gulf News, other schools in the area will participate in the eco-schools programme. It is only through education that the nature of a wasteful society will be changed to that of preservation. Let us all join together.

— The pupils are the eco-president and vice-president of the Greenwood International School's Eco Club, based in Dubai