The Newington College Sustainability Committee is a student organisation run by volunteers who both care about the environment and want to embrace active leadership within the school and community. The committee meets twice a term as a whole group and breaks into project teams. Some of the projects currently underway include organising paper recycling in the classrooms, exploring bottle refill stations around campus to avoid disposable bottle usage, Clean Up Australia Day 2013, 2013 Earth Hour activities, coordinating an educational campaigns committee and a Sustainability speaker to present at the Literature Festival.

Last year we had many successful initiatives. These included: Clean Up Australia Day, Earth Hour, an awareness tent at Back to Newington Day, an online petition on change.org to ask the major grocery stores to stop using non-biodegradable bags (see our Spaces page for the link to support this petition), the Swap party and the Battery Recycling initiative. All of these events came from student ideas and were run by students with my support.

We now have a battery recycling station in the foyer of the Founders Building and we ask that all families send their used batteries in to school with their child to be deposited in the box. A member of the Sustainability Committee will take the batteries to Marrickville Council offices where the used batteries will be safely disposed.

We would love to see greater participation both from students and families and encourage parents and students alike to join the group and see what new initiatives we can introduce to make our community and the world more sustainable.

Please contact me with any questions at mrandell@newingon.nsw.edu.au. We look forward to working with the entire Newington community to make changes and encourage more sustainable actions both at home and in school.

Mandi Randell
Sustainability Coordinator, English Department