Research carried out by Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser in 2018 found that the world has cumulatively created 7.8 billion tonnes of plastic between 1950 and 2015:

In 2015 alone, 407 million tonnes of plastic was freshly created in the world with 146 million tonnes of it being made for packaging. Of the 146 million tonnes of plastic made for packaging, 141 million tonnes of it has ended up as ‘waste’, leading to the image that you see at the top of this page being a feature of waste dumps around the world.

Whereas we recognise that there is so much more that we can do as a school, something that we can do sooner rather than later is cut back on the amount of plastic packaging we use. Therefore, working closely with our ‘Tythy Goes Green’ group and catering provider, Innovate Food, we have agreed that no drinks in plastic bottles will be sold as part of our in school catering provision from September 2019.

What this means for our students and staff

From September 2019, students and staff are asked to bring in and use their own bottles containing water or squash from home that can be re-used on a daily basis. Our water fountains and additional drinking water taps can then be used during the course of a day to refill.

In doing this, our students and staff will be making a small but significant impact on the volume of plastic waste being produced. They will be part of leading the way with this form of action in schools around the country and achieve another target set by the Tythy Goes Green group back in May 2018, along with:

Watch Esther speaking at TEDx Macclesfield 2019 about this change

Download this information

To download this information in the form of PDF presentation slides, please click here.

References

Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2019) – “Plastic Pollution”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution‘ [Online Resource]