The eight pupils from the Portreath Primary School Plastic Free Schools committee gained Parliamentary recognition from MP George Eustice for their work on making Portreath School a Plastic Free School. Their work exemplifies the Plastic Free Schools message, to never underestimate the power of your voice.

“We believe that the future of our planet and our seas depends on us as a school and all the children of our generation.” Emily, Age nine, Portreath Primary School

Since beginning their journey on the programme in winter 2017 the pupils have used the Plastic Free Schools framework to create lasting positive environmental change in their school. Once forming their committee the pupils got cracking on their first objective a secret school litter pick, more formally known as a trash mob!

The trash mob results sparked a body of positive pupil action.

“We were surprised with what we found, over 104 individual pieces of litter, a lot of which was from packed lunches. We held a boycott day to tackle this problem, we let everyone at school know our plans and we found out that the plastic usage dramatically decreased by half!! At our school we have changed our plastic milk bottles to glass ones, our un reusable ice packs for reusable ones and Chartwells, our catering company, have given us thick paper boxes instead of individual plastic pots.” Harry, Age nine, Portreath Primary School

In April 2018  we were delighted to bring the eight pupils from Portreath Primary School to speak at our Protect Our Waves All Party Parliamentary Group. Together they presented an overview of the work they had achieved during the Plastic Free Schools programme and posed some challenging questions to the MP’s invited.

“Congratulations to pupils from Portreath School who came to Parliament to address a parliamentary committee on the work that they have done to tackle the scourge of plastic waste. They have persuaded suppliers to change from plastic to cardboard packaging, their milk now arrives in glass bottles, and they help with beach cleans at Portreath. It is great to see a Cornish school teaming up with Surfers Against Sewage to take part in this campaign”. George Eustice MP

In Objective Three of Plastic Free Schools we ask pupils to challenge Government. In year one of the programme over 780 letters have been written to MPs. A challenge that is much more than an exercise in persuasive writing, these letters have supported our Plastic Free Parliament campaign building the ever growing public voice calling for change. Shaping policies of the future together.