One of Newpark’s most ambitious projects in underway at the moment.
A dedicated group of transition year students, in collaboration with Green Schools Newpark are pushing for Newpark to be the first single use plastic free school in Ireland.
Anyone who has watched Blue Planet II knows that Single use plastics are some of the
most environmentally destructive substances in the world. As they are non biodegradable they
stay in the world environment and oceans for millenia, slowly breaking into smaller and smaller
pieces. These small pieces of plastics, known as microplastics then absorb poisonous
pollutants. Animals will then ingest these plastics thinking they are food, they are either
poisoned by the pollutants in the plastics or starve to death as they cannot digest them.
The creation of plastics is also destructive to the environment. The majority of plastics
are made from crude oil. The extraction of these releases large amounts of carbonic gases such
as CO2. The transportation of the oil can lead to catastrophic oil spills destroying coastlines.
To prevent pollution and meet our climate change emission targets we will need to put
an end to our use of single use plastics, such as plastic water and soft drink bottles, food
packaging and disposable coffee cups.
Newpark school is determined to lead the way by becoming the first school in Ireland to put and end to the use of single use plastics on our campus.
The project is being led by a dedicated team of transition year students under the guidance of Susan Adams (Sustainability expert commissioned by Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council).
They have been working closely with the management of the school as well as the Green Schools team. They plan on launching the project in March 2018.
You can follow the work of “Plastic Out of The Park” on their social media.
facebook.com/plasticouttathepark
twitter.com/newparkyea
instagram.com/plastic_free_newpark
Or check out some more information about the project on the DLRCOCO website
