Composting the students’ food waste
In 2018, the gardening committee and the sustainability group started a vegie garden with a range of composting systems in place. The aim of our composting is to use food and garden waste generated by the school and turn it into a valuable product for use within the school grounds.
To involve the students in our composting efforts, we launched the ‘Food Scraps’ bins in Term 3, 2018.
White Food Scraps bins (painted recycled containers) have been placed in the undercover area and in each classroom. Keen ‘Waste Warrior’ students have nominated to help their fellow students work out which bin to put their rubbish into and how to compost their food waste.
Steps to composting
1.Students are to put their food waste in the Food Scrap bins. Please make sure that NO plastic or other food packaging is put into the scrap bins or the compost.
2. Put the contents of the ‘Food Scraps’ bin into the green compost tumbler in the Hillside Harvest vegie garden (open it by turning the lid at the top).
3. Add the same amount of shredded paper from the black compost bin, and put in the tumbler.
4. Put the lid back properly on the tumbler and ‘turn’ it a few times. If it is too heavy to turn, don’t worry about it.
5. Rinse your ‘Food Scraps’ bin with water, before returning it to class.
Waste Warriors
Many thanks to Ben and Emily, our inaugural ‘Waste Warriors’ int Term 3, who donned special t-shirts, 
helped during the ‘launch’ of recycling at Basie, and who also assisted the students at recess and lunch to work out whether to put their rubbish into the ‘Food Scraps’, ‘General Rubbish’ or the ‘Soft Plastics’ bins.
Beeswax wraps workshop
Karen Winterburn and the students in Rooms 15-18 made a bees’ wax sandwich wrap each early Term 4, 2018 which replaces the need for disposable plastic wrap.
A big thank you to Miho, Catherine, Emma, Suzanne and Jenny for helping source the wax, prepare it, find irons on Buy Nothing Bayswater, and assist on the day. We also sorted through the Yellow Lidded Recyclables Bin (which tends to get very contaminated), and the soft plastics bin too.
A big thanks to Karen for initiating this fantastic endeavor! Almost 100 wraps were made, so just think of how much disposable wrap we will divert from landfill when we use these!!
Due to its success, we will try to allocate the purchase of wax in the next WW Grant for 2019, to allow the whole school to take part.
