Paper Cycle
Project Subject:
Paper is a commodity used to excess in the modern world. Books,
pages, lined paper, blank paper, pamphlets, posters, packaging –
everywhere you look, there it is. In a busy school environment,
thousands of pieces of paper are used every week – and a good
number of these are just wastefully thrown away. Our ecocommittee saw this great waste – and decided to do something
about it. For the past three years we have raised awareness through
posters (admittedly fighting fire with fire); promoted our school
websites as alternatives to paper, and where we couldn’t reduce the
paper we reused and recycled it.
The Isle of Man Government first began paper-saving initiatives by
issuing each school on the Island with a large blue recycling bin.
Our school eco-council was quick to respond to this, by organising
the distribution of large crisp boxes which were supplied to each
classroom in the school, as paper recycling boxes. However, over
time students lost interest in these bland old crisp containers, many
were thrown out by mistake. To make the differentiation clearer, we
have recently re-stocked all the classrooms with new, decorated
boxes.
Our other main paper scheme was the manufacturing of paper
briquettes, which were then distributed to elderly members of the
community as a greener form of heating. We have also made paper
bags, paper bracelets and paper baskets.
We had started a tree planting project and we were aware of how
many trees were being cut down to provide paper.
Action Plan

Jul 2008 – First Eco-day. Recycling workshop held by Department of
Environment on the importance of recycling paper. Students made their own paper
and also created paper bags – it was from here that we gained the inspiration for
saving paper.

Jan 2009 – Eco-committee met to try and find ways to tackle ways of cutting
down and recycling paper.

Jan 2009 to present – Breakdown of school photocopying costs for each
month monitored

Feb 2009 to present – Crisp boxes transformed into paper recycling bins. Boxes
were labelled Paper Recycling and put in each of the classrooms. Eco members and
cleaners empty boxes into a paper recycling bin which is then collected by Peel
Commissioners and taken to be recycled off-island.

March 2009 – VLE officially launched

July 2009 – Eco Day –Bracelets made from old magazines.

Sep 2009 – Dec 2009 – 158 Paper briquettes made and distributed to elderly
for winter fuel

Jan 2010 – Feb 2010 – Paper Baskets – newspapers turned into waste paper
bins.

Jan 2010 – Eco–committee have breakdown of school photocopying costs for
each month. Eco-committee drew up photocopying guidance code for staffroom to
see if they could reduce amount of photocopying in order to save both paper and
money.

March 2010 – July 2010 – All students and staff taught how to use VLE

March 2010 – Oct 2010 – New recycling boxes made. Bright and colourful and
use of motifs to encourage use of recycling

Sep 2010 – Dec 2010 – 169 Paper briquettes made, distributed to elderly for
winter fuelDrying briquettes

Sep 2010 to present – VLE monitored and used by all.Making briquettes from
newspaper
Project Results
Since beginning in 2009, we have been monitoring photocopying
costs, which we have since significantly reduce. Jan 2009 – Dec
2009 costs were £14236.79. Jan 2010 – Dec 2010 costs were
£11,406.01 saving us £2830.78 .
Since homework was undertaken on our VLE site we have reduced
paper .An example on the year 7 site 7,640 homeworks were
submitted online between September and December 2010 saving
7,640 pieces of A4 paper.
We have also monitored the amount of paper purchased . Since VLE
use Sep 2010 –Dec 2010 635 reams of paper have been used
compared to 700 reams for the same period in 2009. We have saved
approximately 3 trees as 1 tree makes approximately 16.67 reams of
copier paper.
The VLE is our big paper saver – which in its lifetime has saved
countless thousands of pieces of paper. Everyone in the school is
actively involved within it, and with the introduction of the new
Wiki, we wish to go almost paper free, saving both money (which we
can invest in other eco plans) and the environment.
Before we started all waste paper was quite wastefully thrown away
. Now with our paper recycling boxes paper is taken to the recycling
bin and sent off Island to be recycled at a mill in North Wales. The
mill manufactures huge rolls of recycled newsprint which are sold to
newspaper publishing groups including Isle of Man
Newspapers who use it to produce our local papers
(e.g. TheCourier, The Examiner etc) so we really are closing the
recycling loop.
Over the three years of paper briquette manufacturing we have
created 327 paper bricks – recycling approximately 1308
newspapers (where one paper brick weighs 150g, a newspaper
600g, thus four to one brick). It takes three kilograms of wood to
create one kilogram of white paper – so if we’ve saved 196.2kg of
paper (0.6 x 327), we have effectively prevented the cutting down of
588.6kg of trees on the paper brick scheme alone.
Project Summary:
The overall goal for this project was to try and cut down on the
amount of paper used within school – and where we couldn’t
prevent its use, we recycled it to let it serve another purpose. The
school acquired an online VLE (virtual learning environment
preventing unnecessary printing and photocopying. We have also
been creating paper bricks from waste paper for a number of years
– these are then given to elderly people of the community, as a more
sustainable substitute for firewood/coal. We realised we were using
too much paper – and did our best to stop it.
Briquette Project continued to July 2013
To date over 1000 paper briquettes have been distributed to
elderly in community.