Primary schools launch their ideas in Recycling Awareness Week contest

The plastic bag may be the great utility item of the late 20th century, but it has a downside: its persistence in the environment and ability to litter and blight a landscape. Pupils from a Co Tipperary school, however, have reincarnated it as a fashion statement.

The fifth-class pupils at St Joseph's primary school in Templemore have quite an industry going, shredding the bags, incorporating them into balls as is done with wool and knitting new items such as durable purses, shoulder bags and heavy-duty sacks.

They are among five finalists in a primary schools recycling competition held to mark Recycling Awareness Week, which runs until November 19th and attracted nearly 500 entries.

It aims to encourage environmentally-friendly attitudes and instil in young people the merits of recycling. Only 8 per cent of Irish waste is recycled or reused in a nation where the equivalent of 3,000 trees a day is discarded.

"Through trial and error, they discovered how to do it," said Sister Breda Coman, who is principal and teaches the fifth-class pupils. One girl has made a colourful bag using 70 plastic bags. "They are using them. They are giving them as presents. They're proud of them more than anything else," she said.

Recycling is not rocket science, and its beauty may be in its simplicity, as the work of pupils at Our Lady of Good Counsel girls' national school in Killiney, Co Dublin, has shown. They are recycling the netting increasingly used in retailing, such as for oranges, to create bird feeders.

The main judge in the competition, a Trinity College scientist, Dr Ronnie Russell, said many entries indicated their schools were already very active on environmental issues.

It was equally evident that teachers had spent a lot of effort explaining the environment and recycling. "Awareness is quite high for children of that age. The environment is still very much one of their priority areas," he said.

The other finalists in the competition, sponsored by Persil and Timotei, are from Scoil Iosagain Buncrana, Co Donegal; St Laserian's National School, Carlow; and Scoil Mhuire na Trocaire, Co Louth.

Pupils from each school are outlining their projects on Gareth O'Callaghan's Breakfast Show on 2FM this week. The winners of a class trip to Legoland will be announced on Friday, while four runners-up will each win £500 of science equipment.

To promote more intensive recycling, Persil and Timotei have produced a CD-ROM on protecting the environment for Irish schools and a teacher's information pack which highlights recycling options with paper, plastic, glass, metal and organic matter.