2012 Winners

The winning entries in this year’s Competition employed a very effective mix of both ‘carrot and stick’ to encourage companies to ‘buy recycled first’ to meet their packaging needs.

While Wallington Primary sought to persuade all ‘stakeholders’ with their wonderfully engaging animated musical film clip, Bentleigh West took the challenge to their Council and larger employers, interviewing CEO’s and officers to establish what they were doing to ensure they ‘buy recycled too’ – packaging their messages to their school and wider communities so as to generate significant media interest.

Windaroo Primary School, Queensland, 2012 Winners. Not playing? Click here

Wallington Primary School, Victoria, 2012 Runners Up. Not playing? Click here

Bentleigh West Primary School, Victoria, 2012 Runners Up. Not playing? Click here

The winning entry, that of Windaroo Primary, combined both strategies, and packaged them into a display for the 95,000 visitors to the Queensland Museum for 4 weeks around National Science Week. They produced brochures distributed throughout their community, identifying the manufacturers who buy recycled, and those who don’t! They then presented their whole communications package on ‘You Tube’.

All 3 winning schools produced a range of extraordinary communications and engagements with all spheres of influence in their communities – business, government, community/not for profit organisations and the media. And they did not let up!

“Making a difference they are ….. proven by industry now also using recycled steel (44%) aluminum (64%) and some plastic (21%) and glass (35%) packaging.

“Switching to Australian recycled packaging not only promotes recycling and saves Australian jobs, it also takes away the market for ‘wood chip’ fibre taken from High Conservation Value Forests, the habitat of many endangered species.”

So while presenting the range of activities required to create a sustainable future, the students focussed attention on those manufacturers and brands who use our waste to produce their packaging, and by inference, those who don’t and who instead, just add to the waste and landfill problem with their ‘virgin’ packaging.

Most importantly, all winners’ entries relentlessly reinforced the behaviour changes we all must make to achieve a sustainable future – particularly our manufacturers who import foreign packaging, and in so doing, export Australian jobs.

Phil Enright, National Coordinator of the Australian Recycled Cartonboard National Schools Competition said, “The achievement of the students is exceptional. The creativity and scale of their entries to effectively communicate the key messages was beyond that of many professionals. The commitment of schools like our winners of this year’s Competition, Windaroo Primary School and their dedicated teacher, Rebecca Johnson, is essential to sustain community pressure to keep industry expanding its use of recycled waste in the packaging they use.

“It is with great pleasure, as well as the $10,000 cheque for the winning school, this year we are able to meaningfully acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of teachers such as Rebecca, with a $2,500 Grant for Professional Development.”

Wallington Primary School