Many schools across the borough compost their food waste and children are very accustomed to placing the skins from their bananas and their apple cores into a compost bin at the end of break time.  However, composting at one local school – Horniman Primary, was so successful that they ran out of space- with their compost bin overflowing with fruit, vegetable peelings and shredded paper.

 The dilemma facing the school council was what they should do with all their kitchen and garden waste,  so under guidance from their class teacher- Mrs Brand, they put pen to paper and wrote to the Environment and Community Development (ECD) team requesting help. 

Rosie Holland (Horniman School) with a Waste Prevention Officer and Martin Warner (Pest Control)

 Keen to encourage the school to reuse and reduce their waste, members from the ECD team offered a couple of hours of their time to build the school a new, larger capacity compost bin.  Using old pallets accrued from deliveries to the teams Wearside offices, they set about building the new bin aided by an officer from Lewisham’s pest control team who made the bin rodent proof. Also helping was the schools gardener- Rosie Holland.

Reusing and recycling old pallets to construct the compost bin.

Two members of the school council Jamal Suleiman and Isabella Lloyd were amongst the first to use the new bin, starting it off by putting in garden waste.

Children from Horniman Primary School start to use the new composter made from the pallets.