Environmental Initiatives

In 2023 Jerramungup District High School was sucessful in gaining the status of being a Waste Sorted School.

Our goals for continuing this status at Jerramungup District High School are:

• Reduce use of single use items within the school, and increase use of durable and reusable alternatives.
• Annually assess and find innovative ways to direct our biggest waste streams away from landfill.
• Educate students and the broader community about environmental tipping points and why it is important to reduce our local footprint, and on systems that the school is adopting to achieve this.
• Develop a culture of "continuous improvement" and maintain a strong sustainability committee in which teachers, other school staff, parents, local citizens and students are all welcome to contribute to the improvement of our school's waste systems.
• Reduce school consumption of resources, and replace with ethically sourced materials such as recycled paper and plastics where possible.

A Sustainability team has been formed and have worked very hard to put some initatives into the school to help achieve and support this status. These include:

•  Strategically placed colourful waste stations near lunch areas that provide easy to understand alternatives to general waste.
• 2 small food scrap tubs on a durable plastic table to sort sandwich and fruit/veg scraps with an application for Chickens to be housed at school to use these scraps. These are also located in various classrooms and the staff room.
• STOP, THINK, RECOVER signage near these waste stations, and colourful bin covers will have Velcro stitched on the front to stick laminated colour signs that clearly indicate the type of waste that is supposed to be deposited.

Waste Audits have been regularly conducted at school to make students aware of the amount of throw away rubbish that is being bought into school and encourage them to have conversations with their parents about what they can be doing differently to work towards being more sustainable.

Waste Free lunch days have also been held at the school where a day is chosen and each class are to count the rubbish that is in their lunch box. The class with the least amount of rubbish wins a class prize.