Bristol Green Capital

Headley Park Primary School in Hartcliffe, Bristol, has joined Bristol’s campaign to become European Green Capital 2014 and is urging other schools and young people to back the bid.

The school is currently on its own quest to become an official Eco-School and has made a number of significant changes as part of its eco programme, including installing solar panels, putting insulation in throughout the school building, introducing recycling bins in the playground and weekly food recycling, and setting up an Eco team.

Head teacher, Brian Walton, says: Our students are really enthusiastic about making the school more sustainable and theyre full of imaginative ideas for things we can try. As well as all the obvious improvements such as solar panels and better recycling facilities, weve also done things like hold regular Big Green Days, weve made a greenhouse out of plastic bottles, and every week a trophy is awarded to the greenest class for things like having the least waste paper in their bins and turning their lights out at break time.

We are delighted to show our support for Bristol’s European Green Capital 2014 bid. It would be a great opportunity to show the rest of Europe the fantastic passion for green that we have in this city and the amazing scope of work that is going on at every level – from school children to businesses and the community.  I hope all the schools in Bristol will sign up to support the bid too and show how important it is to the young people in our city.

Cabinet member for children and young people, Cllr Clare Campion-Smith, said: A huge amount of green activity has been going on in our schools around the city, and its partly thanks to all this activity that Bristol has made it to the finals of the European Green Capital awards. 35 schools now have solar panels installed, we have a successful schools recycling programme in place, and there are 120 schools in the city registered as Eco-schools and working hard to make their schools more sustainable and share their ideas with others.
 
Cabinet member for festivals and communities, Cllr Guy Poultney, said: Its fantastic to see all the work going on at Headley Park Primary and were delighted they are signing up to support Bristol’s bid. We hope that lots more will sign up and support it too. Being a sustainable city and hopefully the next European Green Capital means a better quality of life for the next generation, it means more jobs in the environment and technology sectors, and it helps to bring our communities together by working on something that has benefits for us all.

To sign up and show support for Bristol’s bid, visit www.bristolgreencapital.org/support. People can also upload short videos to this site, showing what green things theyve been doing. Support can also be shown by liking it on Facebook and following @bgreencapital on Twitter.

ENDS

The Solar PV in Schools programme has seen council investment of £1 million to install solar panels in 35 schools. This will save money on the schools energy bills and generate more than 550 kilowatts of free electricity every year – enough to power 140 homes. It will also save around 280 tonnes of CO2 a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. The solar panels have all been installed by local renewable energy specialist, Solarsense.

The Recycling in Schools programme runs a Green Teams Challenge every year to encourage the pupils in all schools to think about ways to recycle and be more sustainable. This years challenge is the Zero Waste Olympics. Between the 11th – 29th June, schools will have to recycle as much as possible and gold, silver and bronze prizes will be awarded. The programme is provided by the city council and offers schools free, tailor-made waste and recycling education workshops. To find out more, email recycling.online@bristol.gov.uk.

The Eco-Schools programme is run by the environmental charity, Keep Britain Tidy Group. It is an international award programme that guides schools on their sustainable journey, providing a framework to help embed these principles into the heart of school life. Schools work towards gaining one of three internationally recognised awards – Bronze, Silver and the Green Flag award, which symbolises excellence in the field of environmental activity. Find out more at www.keepbritaintidy.org/ecoschools

From Left to Right: Prof. Martin Bigg, chair of GC Partnership, Cllr. Guy Poultney, cabinet member for communities, Rollo (centre), with Tom and Nathan from Green Chameleon.

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