Rockmount primary school students tell parliament’s earth summit how to reduce plastic waste
On Monday June 16, Rockmount Primary School came to the Houses of Parliament to present their ideas on tackling plastic waste as part of the Wastebuster Primary Earth Summit.
The event, which brought together policy makers, MPs, EU Commission representatives, businesses, campaigners and the media to hear from children from schools across England who presented their ideas to help reduce plastic waste.
Beginning in May, Rockmount Primary School joined other primary and secondary schools to explore and design ways to reduce plastic waste including through education, improved collection of waste, plastic dumped at sea, and product design. Rockmount students beat over 18,000 schools invited to take part to be shortlisted in the last 20 schools with the most interesting ideas that were presented in Parliament in front of a panel of politicians, scientists and industry experts
Supporting Rockmount students, Croydon North MP Steve Reed said: “I want to congratulate the children of Rockmount Primary on being shortlisted to present their ideas to the Primary Earth Summit. It was great to hear how much the children cared about making Croydon cleaner and more environmentally friendly.”
Winning schools’ ideas will be developed by the summit’s partners and supporters, and promoted nationally through the Earth Summit school network, which comprises more than half the schools in England before being extended to schools across Europe.
The Primary Earth Summit was a satellite event of the annual European Green Week, which took place this year on 3rd-5th June. The ultimate aim of the Primary Earth Summit is to promote the idea of plastic waste as a precious resource that must be managed responsibly, and to encourage youth leadership of community-led waste reduction efforts.