School pupils in recycling initiative

Date Added - 25/01/12

Schoolchildren in Moray have collected a remarkable 7.5 tons of old and unwanted electrical goods during a council initiative to reduce waste.

Twelve schools took part in a competition run by Moray Council’s waste monitoring team as part of the annual European Week for Waste Reduction.

The aim was to encourage pupils and staff  to take into school any items of old or unwanted electrical equipment. The monitoring team then visited each of the schools to count, weigh and remove all the items that had been brought in.

Monitoring assistant Neil Duncan said: “The response was staggering. In total the schools collected more than 7.5 tons of electrical equipment, including nearly 100 TVs, three washing machines, 15 white goods, a mountain of computer equipment and many other smaller items.

“Except for the larger bulkier items, most would simply have been disposed of in wheelie bins and from there into landfill. As it is, everything was sent to a recycling company in Perth and valuable landfill space was saved.”

Glenlivet Primary School collected the most weight per pupil – over 700kg in total – and won £200 worth of computer equipment donated by Forres-based ReBoot.

Tomintoul Primary took in the most items per pupil and won a selection of litter pickers for the school donated by Moray Council.