Towards2050

Throughout 2022, Camberwell Grammar’s passionate Towards2050 group achieved a range of goals as we aimed to build a greener community. The group, supported by Mr Hone and Ms Massey, hosted some awesome events that helped promote our central concerns, raise money, and spark action on the broader environmental concerns facing our planet. While each student has their own interests – whether power, water, waste, or biodiversity – we had a general focus on waste this year.

One of the first major events we ran for the year was our annual Green Week at the end of Term 1, where we established our focus on waste. After months of planning, we were able to host a range of activities throughout the week, all aiming to educate and promote the serious impact wasteful actions cost the environment. Free pumpkin soup was available from the canteen, made from Camberwell Grammar’s home-grown pumpkins. We had a footy boot recycling initiative, free green cupcakes, a scavenger hunt that ran all week, and a lunchtime movie session showing War on Waste, a documentary by Craig Reucassel. This was all in the build-up to the famous annual Green Week concert, a Friday lunchtime event that was jam-packed and showcased some of the most epic talents of our school. We paired this with a kangaroo sausage sizzle. These sausages are brilliant – not only are they tasty, but they are low on environmental impact as kangaroos don’t produce methane, like cows and sheep, and don’t have cloven hooves that tear up the ground. This was an awesome way to reward the School after a busy first term, sending the students off on holidays with smiles stretching from ear to ear.

This year also saw the School switch to 100% renewable energy. This means that every kilowatt of power that the School uses is produced from renewable sources, with around 48% coming from the School’s solar panels. To celebrate, we produced a short video showcasing this awesome milestone – we’re pretty excited! Hopefully, some other schools will join us in the renewable revolution.

Throughout the year, we also had the enthusiastic Middle School students maintain the Middle School’s war on waste. Determined to get the right waste in the right bin, Lucas Papadopoulos, Sam Page, Roy Legge, and Thomas Torre worked on getting our contamination rate as low as 20%.

We have a variety of other projects on the go. A big focus for us is e-waste – as technology is rapidly changing and improving it is crucial that we dispose of our old equipment in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Christien Aung is working on our MobileMuster campaign, a project that ensures that all the materials that have gone into making your electronics can be recovered and used again. This recycling method is good for the planet and 100% carbon neutral through MobileMuster – so bring your old (blanked) mobile phones into the Weickhardt Library and know their precious elements will be reused, instead of clogging up that drawer.

The headline projects are interesting, but there’s a lot more happening to minimise Camberwell Grammar’s footprint. For example, we are working on a mask recycling initiative, sustainable cooking videos, battery recycling, improving our vegetable garden, expanding our beehives, investigating using reusable crockery in the canteen, and many more awesome projects! I have always been a massive advocate for getting involved in all the opportunities our school has to offer and there is no better group to get involved in than Towards2050. I highly encourage people to get involved in this passionate, determined, and creative group. There is no better feeling than finding a problem, working with each other to find a solution, undertaking the planning and organising, and then the satisfaction of seeing a finished project that aids the most prominent issue our world faces today.

The thought of coming back to see what this group has achieved in years to come is genuinely exciting and I am proud to have been a part of the incredible group of people that Towards2050 consists of.

Harrison Haintz

Prefect for Environment and Sustainability