By Ewen McRae
Melton Secondary College has taken the first steps towards a greener future, after conducting its first waste audit last week.
The school, which has previously never had a recycling program, decided to raise awareness on the need to better manage waste at the school by dividing up rubbish from school bins to discover what could be recycled.
Senior school team leader Max Beliniak said the results were amazing.
“We tipped over nine bins and sorted it into six different categories to see where the rubbish around the school was coming from,” he said.
“We found out that over half of the rubbish we sorted was able to be recycled.
“We took spreadsheets of data which showed 90 litres of organics that could be composted, just over 7000 items of paper or cardboard, 2500 items of soft plastic, and only a very small amount that deserved to go to landfill.
“The students were all really surprised by some of the things that got thrown out that was perfectly fine or able to be re-used.”
Mr Beliniak said he hoped this would be a stepping stone to a proper recycling program at the school and sustainability improvements in their community.
“We currently don’t have a recycling program, and there’s no education around recycling or sustainability at the school unless you do certain VCE subjects,” he said. “So it’s important for the kids future, because they’re going to be living on an Earth that’s surrounded by plastic and global warming.”
