Inspiring students to reduce waste through educational outreach

Funded by Devon County Council, our waste education project has provided top-tier workshops, audits, and educator support to thousands of children and teachers across Devon since 2008.

Delivered by a team of three dedicated project staff (with additional support from the wider Resource Futures team), our work inspires pupils, encourages conversations around waste, reuse and recycling, and supports schools in their efforts to put sustainability first.

Sustainable action (and education around this topic) has become an increasingly critical issue for schools: the introduction of Simpler Recycling legislation means that all schools are now required by law to recycle their paper, card, rigid plastics, metal, glass and food waste.

Meanwhile, the UK Government’s sustainability and climate strategy for education aims for all schools to have a climate action plan and a sustainability lead responsible for implementing sustainable change in that school. Our education team has seen a rise in requests from schools as they put climate action plans in place and rethink how they collect and recycle materials across their buildings.

In partnership with Devon County Council, our education team has made a real difference to pupils and staff alike over the past twelve months, having:

• Delivered 207 in-school sessions: including workshops, assemblies, compost advice visits, and eco-group team meetings
• Delivered 18 mini-WOW (watch our waste) projects, which aim to improve recycling systems within schools
• Presented two career talks to older students
• Assisted 16 school visits to Energy from Waste (EfW) facilities, led by Devon County Council
• Led four beach learning days (including litter picks, beach art, and activities around marine litter campaigns and microplastics sieving)
• Held eight events that engaged with the wider community

The waste education project supports Devon County Council’s strategy to help schools empower children with the behaviours, skills and knowledge needed to build a sustainable future.

The education team works across each district within Devon: in 2024-25 they visited 72 schools across the county and reached an average of 17% of schools in each district. These efforts engaged with just under 10,000 pupils and supported almost 1,000 staff members in their waste education efforts. Of the schools worked with, nearly half had not received waste education support in the past three years.

“I thought it was a brilliant workshop, excellently delivered. My class was completely engaged, and [pupils] were able to deepen their understanding of raw materials, recycling and sustainability. The conversations they had during the workshop were great to hear. It also linked very well to our science topic on sustainability.”

South Tawton Primary School

Changing behaviours at Stockland Primary Academy 

A small but vibrant school in a small village in East Devon, Stockland Primary Academy had staff with previous experience of conducting waste audits with us and wanted to use the WOW (watch our waste) process to support their application for ‘eco-schools’ status.

Staff and students worked successfully throughout the year to improve waste systems and behaviours in the school – with an initial waste audit in November and an action day in January, alongside activities including poster-making, bin labelling, and an assembly to introduce ‘Clyde, the fruit waste bin’ as a composting solution for food waste.

Each class had a workshop to introduce the topic, with classes then monitoring and managing their own recycling efforts; a second audit in June showed impressive improvements resulting from this.

This was followed by a community event engaging with members of the public about the school’s achievements, along with pupils selling plants they had grown from seed.

Driving engagement beyond the school gates 

The school workshops span a wide array of subjects – from recycling and marine litter to sessions focused on batteries, paper and plastic – and cover skills such as composting, growing, recycling and reuse.

As well as engaging pupils during these sessions, a key goal is to encourage further conversation on the topics raised – not just within schools, but in homes and the wider community. To this end, pupils participating in workshops or audits receive activities sheets (and sometimes an item they make during the session) to take home, providing an opportunity for them to share their learning and spark conversations at home around waste and recycling.

A parental survey showed this approach works: 81% of pupils go home and talk about the workshop they attended, while more than half of parents surveyed were planning to (or were considering) making changes at home to increase recycling, composting or waste reduction.

“I loved seeing the strange things which had been thrown away by our school and then sorting them into the bags. I liked being part of the weighing group and looking through the recycling to see what shouldn’t have been there. I liked going around the school and doing the bin survey.”

Student feedback on a waste audit

Schools are encouraged to share messaging from our waste education sessions through their channels, with 88% of participating schools doing this. Of these schools, more than half shared details about sessions on social media, while 31% sent a district recycling leaflet home with pupils. Other means of further engagement included announcements in school newsletters, holding a ‘parents’ assembly’, and putting waste education content on the school website.

Supporting sustainability at Trinity Primary and Nursery School 

A large, modern school in the suburbs of Exeter with a well-established forest school, Trinity School has a long-standing interest in embedding sustainability within its conduct and curriculum.

The school’s first waste audit and action day took place in the first half of the spring term, followed by a whole school assembly in February. This saw a weekly prize announced, to be given out for the best recycling efforts, to reinforce the ‘3Rs’ (reduce, reuse, recycle) message.

Following Exeter City Council’s roll-out of food waste collections in the area, an after-school community event took place, celebrating the work completed by the school and sharing the 3Rs message with the wider public. This also provided an opportunity for the Council – which attended with a food waste truck – to speak with the public about the changes.

A second audit to measure progress is scheduled for November 2025, while discussions are on-going for workshop delivery during the school’s October sustainability week.

Supporting educator learning 

For waste education efforts to take root and flourish within schools, they need buy-in, understanding, and dedicated support from school staff. October saw the education team deliver a dedicated teacher training event for 25 teachers, giving them the opportunity to bolster their waste education knowledge and skills, and allowing them to see how waste education can be successfully implemented in educational settings.

This year’s event included a tour and talk from the National Trust, paired with sessions on creating climate action plans (CAPs), biodiversity, net zero, and a presentation from Devon County Council and Resource Futures on how our waste education programme can support their school’s sustainability education efforts.

This work sits alongside the support our education team provides to the Network of Environmental Educators in Devon (NEED) at the behest of Devon Climate Emergency.

Delivering a lasting impact for schools

As well as offering the opportunity to incorporate sustainable behaviours and circular thinking into the curriculum, our waste education outreach helps to deliver sustained positive change for participating schools.

“The children were thoroughly engaged throughout the whole workshop and were buzzing about it for the rest of the day. Loads of the content tied directly into the curriculum objectives for our current topic, and both children and adults came away with lots of new facts and information.”

Bishopsteignton Primary School

Of the schools worked with in 2024-25, 90% reported that their pupils were more enthusiastic about reducing waste and recycling following our engagement with them. On average, our sessions led to a 37% increase in waste being recycled in participating schools, while one in five introduced new or improved recycling facilities as a result.

As a new school year begins, our education team’s work continues to expand, with the addition of a ‘monster bins’ programme. This project will build upon the team’s existing work with the delivery of 35 educational assemblies across four districts to promote recycling and distribute caddies, enhancing environmental awareness and community engagement.