Learners from Wavecrest Primary School in Rocklands are aiming to collect 20 000 plastic yoghurt tubs to create lightweight bricks which will be used to build two classrooms for communities in need.
“September is anti-plastic month and the PnP School Club approached us in April to take part in the competition. A total of 80 primary schools country-wide were identified, of which 12 are in the Western Cape and five in Mitchell’s Plain. Wavecrest is one of the leading schools in the Western Cape and our goal is to collect 400 000 tubs nationally. To date Wavecrest collected 20 000 tubs or 78,85 kg collectively,” says Callista Carolus, project manager at the school.
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She says when she explained to the learners what the project was all about, they brought empty tubs from home, went to shopping malls, crèches in and around the school and from sporting events in their community.
“I was chuckling when one of the learners brought his tubs and said he was standing in front of a family at the mall when they were enjoying their yoghurt. The mother was quite perturbed when he explained why he is standing there and she went back into the shop to buy six more to help him with his total. Needless to say, the family enjoyed the yoghurt before he brought his empty tubs.
“Now more than ever we need to work together to build sustainable solutions for recycling, creating end-of-life solutions for yoghurt tubs, and working with partners to ensure sustainability and scale down on plastic use,” Carolus says.
Local crèches all joined in 100% and she hopes Western Cape will come out tops. “As we celebrate clean-up and recycle month, it is only fitting to see what the youth are doing to contribute towards reducing the amount of waste that pollutes our environment. When the competition started in April a total of 350 six-packs of NutriDay yoghurt were distributed in the school and for the learners it was a learning curve and showed them how teamwork can make the dream work”.
