Litter Pickers

Each fine day following the lunchbreak at the school, four hardy volunteers from Ms. O'Neill's class take to the school yard and field armed with litter pickers and re-cycled cotton bags, kindly provided by Cliodhna Connolly, the Environmental Awareness Officer at Wexford County Council.

Their mission is to pick up and then seperate any rubbish / litter that may have found its way into our area. All involved in the school are thrilled that this class have taken on this task and thanks to their dedication and hard work the yard is usually in excellent shape. Long may it continue!

Energy Officers

Over the past few years many huge changes have been made in the school that saw it awarded a BER of B-2 in October 2009. Amongst these changes were having all the window panes in the old school replaced with tinted, double glazed panes, the exterior walls insulated and the attic insulation upgraded.


The timber units at the doors to the front of the school were also insulated. All this work took place before the heating system installed in 1971 was replaced in the first three months of 2010.


However to improve the efficiency of the school even further the pupils came up with the idea of "Energy Officers." Ms. McGovern's class overlook this simple scheme everyday. Wearing their bright yellow tee-shirts, generously supplied by the Parents' Association, four pupils do a rapid tour of the school at the start and end of each break. Their job is simple...turn off any lights left on by accident and ensure that all the doors are to the outside of the school are closed. This simple job keeps the electricity bill down while preventing vlauable heat loss from the school to the atmosphere.

Fun Phone Facts

Mobile phones are one of the biggest technological advances made in recent years. Fifteen years ago very few people owned a mobile as they were big, expensive to buy and calls cost a fortune.

Today it would be surprising if anyone reading this didn’t own at least one and around 75% of people in Ireland own and regularly use a mobile phone. This means that there are roughly 3,133,000 mobiles in use in Ireland.

Statistics for the UK are more staggering where many people, just like Ireland, have more than one mobile or have old phones lying around at home. There are an estimated 90 million unwanted phones in the UK alone many of these are as a result of the 15million phones that are upgraded there every year.

Some person worked out that if these phones were laid end to end they would stretch from John O’Groats to Land’s End…..a distance of 1,300km or from Wexford to Dublin and back again more than four times.

This mobile mountain weights around 12,000 tonnes and it is estimated that only 5% of old mobile phones are currently recycled.

How is Glass Recycled

Many plants in Ireland do the first three jobs shown below. However after the glass is crushed and any metal caps and lids removed with magnets, it is called "cullet."

This is then exported to the likes of Quinn Glass in Northern Ireland, where it is turned back into glass bottles.

The Quinn Glass Factory is at Derrylin, Co. Fermanagh and it is one of the most hi-tec glass factories in Europe.

How to Recycle Glass

Glass recycling is easy, fun and good for the environment. When recycling glass follow these simple steps:

• empty any remaining liquid from your bottles and jars

• remove any lids and caps. Labels do not need to be removed as they will be taken off in the recycling process.

• food jars should be rinsed to remove any residues from the container but they don't need to be completely spotless - remember water is precious too so a good rinse will do!

Encourage an adult in your house to take your bottles and jars to the “Newbawn Bring Centre” and put the bottles and jars into the colour coded bins i.e. clear, green and brown.

If you have blue bottles put them in with the green glass.
Sorting your bottles by colour is important as mixed glass has to be sorted afterwards which costs money and wastes a lot of energy.

Please do not leave bags, boxes or rubbish at your local bring site as this will attract vermin and cause a health risk to others using the “Newbawn Bring Centre.”

DO NOT put any plates, cups, saucers, pyrex or drinking containers into the bottle banks. As little as 1 cup in a skip load of bottles renders the whole load un-usable and destined for landfill. Pyrex is heat treated and so does not melt in the furnace. Drinking containers and glasses are made from different materials and again should not be deposited into the bottle banks.

If you follow these steps you will be doing a good bit for the environment but remember glass can be dangerous. Broken or sharp glass should only be handled with gloves and all glass sorting and re-cycling should really be done by an adult but you can lend your support and encouragement by educating them at home.

Battery Recycling

In 2006 SHNS started a battery re-cycling scheme with a company called “Return Batt” whereby pupils or members of the wider community could bring waste batteries into school and put them in the red bin situated just inside the main door. The scheme was brilliantly simple as when the bin was full, the company was contacted and they came and took the batteries away for re-cycling.

In 2008 WEEE Ireland (The Irish Compliance Scheme for Electrical and Battery Recycling) took over the running of the scheme with the aim of establishing over 10,000 waste battery drop off points. It is estimated that over 2,000 tonnes of batteries are sold in Ireland each year – the equivalent in weight terms of 80 million AA batteries – with most traditionally discarded in rubbish bins instead of being recycled due their small size.

WEEE Ireland facilitate their sorting, treatment and recycling by sending the batteries to a licensed treatment facility dedicated to battery recycling where they go through a variety of processes aimed at recovering material for use again. Much of the original battery components (plastic, lead, and various metals) can be reused to produce new batteries, thus reducing the strain on natural resources.

Battery recycling continues in school today, with the same red bin doing the job now as it did in 2006. When the bin is full the batteries are brought to the Wexford County Council Recycling Amenity in Holmestown by any staff member who happens to be on the way to Wexford town.

This further cuts down on our carbon footprint and conserves resources as WEEE do not have to utilise their resources / manpower in collecting the batteries.

Recycling in Newbawn Village

County Wexford has over 85,000 people living outside the four main towns of Wexford, Enniscorthy, New Ross and Gorey and Newbawn is lucky to be one of the villages that has a Council sponsored “Bring Centre” to divert waste away from landfill.

Situated in the Church Carpark, the “Bring Centre” allows local people recycle glass, drink cans and textiles, with the money from the recycled textiles being used by the ISPCC (Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children).

Watch the Birdy!

Given the school's location in the heartland of rural county Wexford it is not surprising that there is a interest in all things natural.

This interest is fostered from day one. Mrs. Davey is at the forefront of this. Her classroom and the area immediately outside has fed birds for years while providing her pupils with a "bird's eye" view of our feathered friends.

A local man, and great friend of the school, Tom Dunphy, made and erected a few nest boxes and feeding stations while the Parents' Association provided two transparent feeders that are attached to the classroom windows.


So successful are the feeders that sometimes the children pay more attention to the feeders outside the class that the goings-on inside the class.


Last year a nest box with a video camera was attached to the gable end of the classroom but we were warned that it may take a year or two for birds to nest in this latest addition.

Rest assured all eyes will be on the video link in Spring 2011.

Outside Bins

For many years there were bins outside the school, dotted around the field and the yard, but regardless of all efforts made it was an unusual mornings when there weren't papers blowing around the yard.

It was only when the builders were in the school that they noticed the culprits....once the pupils were gone home and the school had quietened down and if the bins had not been emptied that day, the local crows descended on the bins in search of food!! In their efforts to find food they duly flittered and tore any rubbish or paper to shreds before spreading the litter to the four winds.

When Cliodhna Connolly, the Environmental Awareness Officer from Wexford County Council, was out speaking to the children about "what not to do" she mentioned metal dustbins that had a small chimney in the lid and had been used as home incinerators. She said that these were now prohibited but sparked an idea in the Principal's mind.

He duly got three of these bins complete with chimneys and they are now used as rubbish bins outside the school. The "chimney stack lids" serve the dual purpose of allowing papers / rubbish be placed in them via the narrow "chimneys" which prevent the crows getting at the rubbish and littering the school and surroundings.

Inside Bins

Following the extension that was completed in 2007 it was decided to focus on the environment of the school and what practices could be adopted to allow the pupils take ownership of their own space whilst learning lessons that will hopefully stay with them for life.

The BOM decided to set the ball rolling by changing the refuse company servicing the school. As a Wexford based company "Wastepal" were the only company offering "composting" as an option on a fortnightly basis, it was decided to change suppliers and sign up to "Wastepal."

At the same time a series of lessons were taught showing the children how the daily "left-overs" from breaktimes and lunchtimes could be handled. A "warning bell" rings before the start of breaktime and lunchtime. This gives the children a short time to start their healthy snacks / lunches within their classrooms, each of which has two large bins and one smaller one.

The children are encouraged to seperate their "waste" into these re-cycling, rubbish or compost bins. Ms. Crowe's 6th Class traditionally look after the bins in the school on a rota basis.