'Recycle Right' video

The Brentwood Green Team took painstaking efforts and time to put together a comprehensive video on recycling at Brentwood. The video was used to raise awareness on the various streams of recycling available at Brentwood.

Coffee Cups Recycling @ Brentwood

Brentwood is going to trial ‘paper coffee cup recycling units’. We have introduced them into our main staff room, house hub and the SLC kitchen. Please empty the contents in the cup before placing them in the collection tube on the left. Lids and straws should be placed in the collection tube on the right.

Please don’t place any plastic cups/lids and liquids in the collection unit.

Old mobile phones recycling

Brentwood has been acknowledged for our old mobile phones donations last year. The Green Team would like to thank all families that have donated their old mobile phones to support our campaign.

An estimated 880 Mountain Gorillas remain in the wild jungles of Africa. Through providing life-saving medical care, the Gorilla Doctors are helping gorillas’ one patient at a time. Simply by donating your old mobile phone, you will contribute much needed funds for primate conservation, whilst reducing the demand for mining coltan in gorilla habitat. As mining for coltan carves its way through gorilla habitat, it increases the risk of humans and gorillas coming in contact. Wildlife trade, bush meat, competition for land and zoonotic diseases are all threats to gorillas in the wild. The Gorilla Doctors ensure the health and survival of Mountain Gorillas and Eastern Lowland Gorillas through veterinary and human health initiatives. Zoos Victoria makes helping save gorillas easy by supplying pre-paid postage recycling satchels and free courier pickup for schools collecting mobile phones. Funds generated through the refurbishment and resale of old phones supports both Gorilla Doctors work protecting wild gorilla populations in Africa and Zoos Victoria’s conservation programs.

This year, the Brentwood Green team is supporting Zoos Victoria’s old mobile phones recycling program. If you have any old mobile phones to donate, please bring them to the college library and drop them in the mobile phones recycling bin. Thank you for your support.

World Environment Day

2020

During remote learning, the Green Team has managed to create a video for World Environment Day focusing on packing a lunch without any kind of disposables.

2018

The focus for this year’s World Environment Day (5 June) and World Oceans Day (8 June) is to reduce plastic pollution.

This World Environment Day, the Brentwood Green Team created a collage using plastic bottle caps and put it on display in the college library. The collage is used to promote awareness on the extent of plastic pollution in our environment and how we can reduce our plastic usage. We request every plastic consumer to exercise their buying power by refusing single-use plastics.

The Green Team would like to request all students to reduce the plastics brought to the college by bringing nude food to the college on Fridays. Every Friday is a Nude Food Day. Parents too can help us by packing healthy, rubbish-free lunch for their children. A Parent information sheet on ‘Nude Food Day’ is included in this newsletter.

We thank everyone for their support with beating plastic pollution. A special thank yo to our wonderful librarians Ms Brook Tayla, Ms Robyn Clark and Ms June Thein for their help with setting up the 'Beat Plastic Pollution' display in the college library.

2015

The Green Team ran lunch-time activities in the college courtyards to mark this year''s World Environment Day. Team members raised awareness by asking questions relating to recycling and rewarding students for their correct responses

Clean up Brentwood day

2021

Thank you to the staff that let the Green Team attend the Clean Up Brentwood Day event on Friday, we managed to collect nearly 10 kgs of general waste and 4 kilos of recyclables from the college grounds. The team discovered some creative ways of waste disposal being used by students.

A huge THANK YOU to Ashley COOPER and Pramila THAPLIYAL for volunteering their time to help us out with the clean-up - appreciate your support!

2020

28 student leaders from the Green Team and House Captains participated in the Clean Up Brentwood Day. A significant reduction in waste collected indicates that more students are bringing ‘Nude-food’ to the college. Please continue to support the college and environment by reducing the number of disposable items brought to the college.

2018

The Green Team members were joined by the homegroup captains in this year's Clean Up Brentwood Day. Students went around the college grounds and collected various recyclables and general waste items. Students realised the dangers of littering on college grounds.

2017

Students from the Green Team and Years 7 to 9 home group captains were involved in this year's Cleanup Brentwood day, held on March 17 during periods 5 and 6. Nearly 80 students partVpated in this initiative and managed to collect 13kgs of recyclabfe items and 14kgs of general waste. Thank you to everyone who supported the Green Team's initiative, especially to the Years 7-9 home group captains, and Mrs Wright.

National Recycling Week

2019

Three students from the Year 11 Product Design class, Bevan Plant, Sean Kim, Joshua Louey, designed a new recycling station using recycled materials to mark this year’s National Recycling Week. The recycling station is designed to collect old pens, markers, used batteries, old mobile phones and soft plastics. They are sent to various recycling facilities.

Students have been challenged to trial bringing ‘waste-fee lunch’ during this week.

Brentwood staff and students have collected several recyclables through the Recycling Station designed by our Year 11 Product Design students.

Nearly 50 kilos of old pens and markers were dropped at one of Terra Cycle’s drop off points. Old mobile phones were sent to Zoos Victoria to support their ‘They are calling on you’ campaign. Used batteries, old DVDs and globes were dropped at the Monash Waste Transfer Station in Notting hill by our staff. Bottle tops were sent to Envision, who create prosthetic limbs out of the bottle tops.

The Green Team would like to thank all students, staff and parents that supported us this year. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a wonderful break.

2018

This year, the Brentwood Green team is supporting Zoos Victoria’s old mobile phones recycling program.

The Green Team sorted and packed all the recyclables that were collected through the Recycling station in the main staffroom. Your support and contributions have helped us collect the following and prevented them from going to the landfill:

• 14 kg of alkaline batteries

• 14 kg of old pens and textas

• 10 kg of old mobile phones, chargers

• 1 kg of postal padded envelopes

• Several kilos of soft plastics

The Green team would like to thank everyone that contributed items to the recycling station.

2017

Our year 11 product design students have designed a recycling station using recycled timber, which is situated in the main staffroom.

2016

The Green team has finished the year by collecting old textbooks and novels to donate to our chosen charity 'Give a Textbook'. We have collected over 500 textbooks and novels. All the books collected by 'Give a textbook' go to support high schools and prisons in the Philippines. We appreciate the support from students, staff and parents for donating old books for a good cause. We would like to thank our amazing library staff for helping us out with collection and packing of old books.

https://www.facebook.com/qiveatextbook/

2015

Brentwood Secondary College is celebrating National Recycling Week 2015 by seeing how many mobile phones we can collect in our MobileMuster collection units. Simply bring in your old mobile phones, batteries and accessories and place them in the collection box in the front office. It's that easy! Last year Brentwoood collected 7.85 kg of old mobile phones, batteries and accessories and were sent to MobileMuster for recycling. Thank you to all staff, students and parents who have supported us in our success.

2014

Paper recycling bins have been introduced in TLC and G-block classrooms as a part of the National Recycling week.

Bottle tops recycling

Brentwood has started a Bottle cap recycling system in which the bottle caps are donated to envision which then turn these plastic bottle caps into prosthetic limbs. Please donate bottle caps in the container situated in the library.

Recycled office paper

During 2019, Brentwood has decided to switch to 100% recycled paper to cut down on the amount and quality of the paper waste being produced throughout the school.

Brentwood's waste free lunch challenge

The Vic Bag Ban has started on the 1st of November and will apply to plastic shopping bags with handles and a thickness of 35 micrometres or less, including those that are made from degradable, biodegradable and compostable plastic.

This is the perfect time for us to start eliminating plastics from various acts of our daily lives. The best way to start is to consider taking up Brentwood’s ‘Waste-free Lunch Challenge’ during this year’s National Recycling Week (11-17 November 2019). We request families to discuss strategies to avoid soft plastics while packing student lunches. Please visit https://www.nudefoodday.com.au/resources/ for ideas on how to pack a waste-free lunch.

Packing a waste-free lunch helps you:

• save natural resources by reducing your packaging

• prepare a more nutritious lunch

• save approximately $250 every year

New recycling posters

2019

Our Waste contractor, Premier Waste, has confirmed that the recyclables collected from Brentwood are being sent to Orora and Polytrade for recycling and are NOT being diverted to the landfill. Due to the Victorian recycling crisis, we have been asked by Premier Waste to sort the wastes correctly at the source and avoid contamination.

The Green Team has recently updated the signage on all paper recycling bins in classrooms. We request all students to make a note of the items that are accepted in those bins and prevent contamination of the bins.

Coffee pods recycling

In Term 3, our PSD coordinator, Ms Victoria Strong introduced collection of used coffee pods at Brentwood. The pods are collected by Nescafe and shipped to TerraCycle, where they are recycled. In the first installment, 18 kg of coffee pods were collected and sent to TerraCycle. To learn about this recycling program, please visit https://www.terracycle.com/en-AU/brigades/capsulebrigade

Plastic free July 2019

Plastic Free July is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities. Plastic Free July provides resources and ideas to help you (and millions of others around the world) reduce single-use plastic waste every day at home, work, school, and even at your local cafe. Their movement has inspired over 120 million participants in 177 countries.

Students at Brentwood have had the opportunity to win prizes by participating in the ‘Plastic-free July challenge’. As a part of the challenge, students were required to record the actions taken to refuse and reduce plastic usage in their daily lives and the challenges and successes they had from taking up this challenge. For more information regarding the challenge, please click here.

E- waste recycling

E-waste – or electronic waste – is growing three times faster than the rate of standard municipal waste. It contains many potentially hazardous and valuable materials, which don’t belong in landfill. E-waste is any item with a plug, battery or power cord, that is no longer working or wanted.

To help protect our environment and recover more precious resources, the Victorian Government is banning all e-waste from going to landfill as of 1 July 2019. That means, e-waste can’t go in any bin. https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/Campaigns/eWaste

The old Electricals hub at Brentwood, near the staff carpark, accepts: all electrical items with a cord,

electronic devices (eg: laptops, printers), personal care electricals (eg: hair straightener), electrical appliances (eg: toaster, kettle, oven), DIY & garden electricals. All items collected through this hub are collected and recycled by the SCR group. http://scrg.com.au/

Connected to the Earth

Students from grades 7 to 9 connected to Earth by participating in a ‘sorting wastes’ activity during the pastoral care period on 29 March. In this activity, students were given 65 regularly used items at Brentwood and asked to sort them into the various streams of waste collection at our college. Students’ doubts about a few tricky recyclables were clarified by their mentor group teacher using the information provided to them by the Green Team. One interesting observation made by the students from participating in this activity is that we are throwing out several soft-plastic items into the landfill as we don’t have a soft-plastics recycling bin.

We encourage the community to read the information provided here regarding the seven waste streams operating at Brentwood. We seek your support in refusing, reusing, recycling and reduce the amount of waste that is sent to the landfill. We request families to pack nude food and avoid bringing soft-plastics to the college.

Compost Caddies

Brentwood has now introduced compost caddies across all the staff rooms. Students are to use the green compost bin in the garden for food waste. If not accessible, students are to use the general waste bins situated in all of the classrooms and the courtyards.

Reused scrap paper notebooks

There are several unclaimed print outs left at library photocopier every day. The library monitors with the help of our librarians started turning the unclaimed print ots into notepads. The monitors cut the single-sided papers and bind them into small booklets. The notepads can be collected for free by staff and students from the college library and main staffroom.

Waste audit

The Brentwood Green Team carried out an annual audit of the waste collection bins on 11 September. General waste, paper recycling and commingled bins in the classrooms and courtyards were emptied on to tarpaulin and analysed.

The contents were sorted into four categories – recyclables, paper & cardboard, compost and general waste. A copy of the waste audit results is attached below.

In summary, Brentwood has established the infrastructure (bins) and procedures (signage) to sort wastes before they are collected. In most cases the bins are being used correctly, however there are areas where contamination of contents is seen. It was disappointing to notice that some fresh food items were thrown into the bins.

War on waste competition

The Brentwood Green Team ran a competition based in the popular ABC TV program, 'War on Waste'. Staff and students answered questions based on the series through a Google form. The top achievers were rewarded with prizes.