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Small steps to make a big difference
14 May 2025
When Victoria’s Container Deposit Scheme (CDS Vic) was launched in November last year, staff, student leaders and parent volunteers at Our Lady of the Nativity School, Aberfeldie, set some ambitious goals for their community regarding awareness-raising, fundraising, waste reduction and sustainability education. Their efforts have now been recognised with the school named a finalist in the ResourceSmart Schools Awards for 2025.
The school implemented CDS Vic and became a donation partner for the West Zone, enabling families to deposit their containers and donate to the school at the same time.
Students have also been returning containers in ever-increasing numbers. This year, the canteen has sold over 4800 drinks in recyclable containers and the school has recycled a total of 4214 containers via CDS Vic, raising $421.40 so far.
In the canteen, parent volunteers have reduced the use of plastic to a minimum by wrapping food in paper and using containers made from bamboo, sourcing biodegradable and sustainable products from eco-friendly suppliers. The volunteers separate all recyclable packaging or containers when disposing of them and ensure they are placed in recycling bins.
To create some more excitement and engagement, the school ran a competition last term where the class that recycled the most containers won a prize. This improved their weekly recycling rate considerably. Students also take part in sorting containers to build understanding of the benefits of waste reduction.
The school placed a lot of importance on the signage for returning and recycling containers. There is signage on all class lunch-order baskets and clearly labelled recycling stations at all school functions, including parent trivia nights, and Communion and Confirmation lunches.
The students in the Franciscan action team – Alana, Paige, Adam, Jonathan and Lavinia – are proud of their work with the school community to raise awareness of the program, and encourage engagement and participation:
Being named a finalist in the Sustainability Victoria ResourceSmart Schools Awards is such a great achievement for us. We are thrilled to be recognised for our recycling efforts. It has been a whole-school approach starting our CDS Vic recycling program. Our parent volunteers in the canteen have helped to keep this program going.
One of the key areas to success was that we all return our cans in our lunch-order baskets to the canteen to be recycled. We have even had class competitions to see who can recycle the most. This has really helped to encourage all students to recycle.
We are happy that ResourceSmart Schools has acknowledged the small steps we are taking to make a big difference in the world.