An innovative idea encourages young students to think about ways to decrease waste at home and school

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by Hanne Armstrong
This Week Staff

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Students and staff at all District 2 schools are being encouraged to sort their waste into wet and dry bags this year, under a board-wide initiative. At Salisbury Elementary, they're taking things a little further.

"I'm the school's Green Leader in the board's wet/dry programme," says French immersion teacher Madame Leblanc-Lizotte. "I was trying to think of something that would interest and motivate the students."

Madame Leblanc-Lizotte is in her 23rd year of teaching and her 13th at Salisbury Elementary. She certainly seems to be succeeding in motivating the school, and in the process is going a step beyond wet and dry separation. All with a green plastic boot and the Green Boot Award.

This year, every Wednesday at the Salisbury school has been designated Wasteless Wednesday. Students are prompted to bring their lunches in re-useable containers rather than in disposable packaging.

This is an effort not just to separate and recycle, but to actually reduce the amount of waste produced.

"Every Wednesday each home room teacher measures his or her class's blue bag," Madame Leblanc-Lizotte explains. "I tally the number of centimetres from each class each week, and put the results on a chart. The chart uses pictograms and lets us know how each class is doing."

Then, at the end of each month, the class with the smallest measurement total is the winner of the Green Boot Award, a plastic boot filled with stickers, pencils, treats, erasers, and other assorted goodies, and it spends a month in the winning classroom.

"The kids like it, and they're all involved," says Madame Leblanc-Lizotte, "And they're already becoming more aware of re-using, and more conscientious about it."

The staff is also involved, as even those not on the six-member Green Committee encourage their pupils and tally waste on Wasteless Wednesdays. There are plans to form students into green patrollers, to help with awareness and making posters, and the school even has a Waste song with lyrics by Madame Leblanc-Lizotte.

The wet/dry programme, boosted by the Green Boot Award, is having an effect beyond the school, as well. Several parents report that their children are more vigilant about waste when they're at home, which is a pleasant spin-off of the school's efforts.

"Our point is to have less waste," emphasizes Madame Leblanc-Lizotte. "We're not doing this as a competition. That's not the goal."

The school even had a special assembly to launch the wet/dry programme and the Green Boot Award. Waste-themed costumes were worn by staff and students who wished to do so, in an effort to make the problem of waste visible, fun, and yet still serious.

As the time to award the first Green Boot at Salisbury Elementary approaches, Madame Leblanc-Lizotte expresses the hope that Wasteless Wednesday might go from a weekly to a daily part of school life at the school she loves.

If the Green Boot Award remains popular, she might just get her wish.

"Let's separate, recycle, and re-use," she urges. "It's for the sake of our children and their future."