Green champions is about encouraging residents and schools to be greener and recognise and reward those who are doing what they can to make our borough a better place to live. Prizes in 2008 included a month's supply of RDA Organic fruit juice, £75 voucher from Putney Cycles and free membership and £50 driving credit from Zipcar.
The overall winner received a £750 cash prize kindly donated by Thames Water. The winners and runners up were invited to a presentation ceremony in October and those entries went through to the Green Guardian regional awards final in November. Watch this space for information on the 2009 awards.
The winners from each category in 2008 were:
Congratulations to the overall winner, Vicki Carroll, who won £750 from Thames Water. Links
The Champions in detail:
Vicki was nominated for this award by her WEF colleague Jeanette Leigh for her tireless efforts over many years on behalf of WEF. Vicki was instrumental to establishing WEF as the main local forum for environmentally-minded residents to help advance the environmental agenda at a local level, including constructive engagement with the Council to influence its environmental policies. Vicki acted as Chair of WEF for many years before stepping down only recently. Her skills as Chair, combined with strong leadership and enthusiasm has ensured that WEF maintains a high level of active membership and she is considered a thoroughly deserving winner of this award. For further information about WEF, see: http://www.wandsworthef.org.uk/
Since moving to Holroyd Road, the Bradshaws have made many eco-improvements to their home and lifestyle including:
Food Up Front is an "urban food growing network" which encourages people to grow food in their unused outdoor space. Whether it's front gardens, balconies, windowsills or back gardens, their members are given the opportunity to grow and share healthy, natural food. This helps to reduce food miles and dependency on supermarkets, whilst increasing self-reliance and community empowerment. Using these spaces like this allows the community at large to benefit from food with a high nutritional value, at an extremely low cost, as well as helping to "green" the local environment by increasing the amount of vegetation. For further information see: http://www.foodupfront.org/
Thomas's School had a particular environmental focus on food & drink, energy & water and purchasing and waste during 2008. They have pupil sustainability representatives in every class (known as "Green Unicorns") who presented an assembly about waste in October to teach the rest of the school about related impacts and how to minimise them including "the 3Rs" (reduce, re-use, recycle) and the lengths of time it takes different materials to decompose. The school exchanged its old WBC provided paper bank for three "Orange" recycling banks for mixed materials in 2008, enabling them to start recycling plastic bottles, cans glass and cartons, approximately half their waste. Five boxes of toner cartridges were also recycled via the "collect4schools" scheme. The Green unicorns then took part in a formal waste audit which established that 31% of paper being recycled had only been used on one side, 29% of classroom waste bin contents was plastics (mainly cups) and 24% was paper or card that could have been recycled. This enabled them to display highly targeted messages to further reduce their waste impacts using plasma screens and posters across the school. It also prompted them to switch from plastic to paper cups and they are now purchasing 100% recycled paper. Other activities included encouraging families to take part in home energy audits, promoting "Walk to School Week" and placing "turn it off" stickers by all light switches. For further information see: http://www.thomas-s.co.uk/schools/clapham.html
Linden Lodge is a special needs school for 3 to 19 year olds. They set up an Eco-Team in April and have already achieved bronze Eco-Schools status. A compost area has been added to the school's new herb garden, the herbs being used both as food & as an educational resource. More bird, bat and small mammal boxes are being added to their grounds as well as a further compost area. A woodland walk has also been developed within the grounds and efforts to increase the range of habitats along it are underway. The Eco-Team keeps everyone informed about these changes via the school Council & newsletter. For further information see: http://www.lindenlodge.wandsworth.sch.uk/welcome/welcome.html
As a member of Burntwood School's "Envision" sixth form eco-team, Iqrah has helped start the school on a mission to reuse, repair and recycle as much as it can. He helped set up a trial recycling project which placed recycling containers in every classroom to help divert more from the general waste stream. A student poll found 70% support for this. He also helped to organise a re-use and repair fair. He has also helped the team make a mosaic using broken tiles, reflecting the re-use and recycling theme. A student competition was held to design the mosaic which will act as a permanent reminder of the importance of looking after the environment. |
