Waste

It is no surprise that Johannesburg, Tshwane and Cape Town all have less than ten years of useful landfill life left, as waste management is the least prioritised municipal service in most South African municipalities. It lags significantly behind housing, water, electricity and road infrastructure.

South Africa’s eight Category ‘A’ metropolitan municipalities have the highest population numbers and therefore generate the largest waste volumes, at about 20 million and 10 million tons of waste a year respectively, of which the bulk is landfilled. Landfilling at an average density of 1t/m3 means that municipalities need an annual landfill space of about 10 million m3.

The map alongside illustrates the current landfills in the Western Cape and plots their capacity. Most of the Cape landfills have less than five years until they are full. In the City of Cape Town, our landfills have less than 15 years.

As a school, with around 1300 people on campus every day, we contribute to the problem. Earlier this year, under the leadership of Claire Acheson, Life Sciences teacher, and Caitlin Williams, Head of Environmentalism, concrete and radical steps were taken to ‘step up and lead’ in determining a zero-waste policy and originating plans to turn the waste ship around. We looked externally for advice on how to begin our zero-waste journey and partnered with ‘Plant the Seed’, a dynamic group of experts, dedicated to the growth of the circular economy through interventions in spaces of education. They aim to tackle waste from all angles and holistically in schools, ensuring that infrastructure matches training, knowledge and curriculum, making waste more than just various materials in different bins.

To implement successfully a strategy that has longevity at the forefront of its goals, required getting things right, from the start. To get an idea of how much waste St Cyprian’s School was producing, our Eco-Club along with Plant the Seed, conducted a waste audit at school. The results were shocking and illuminating:

The idea behind the waste audit was to find out precisely how much waste our school produces, the distinct types of waste we produce and what steps we must put in place to mitigate our excess. With these results in mind, Plant the Seed have assisted us in putting the following strategies in place to ensure that we have a more environmentallyfriendly campus.

Our main priority was to implement better methods of waste disposal. We have partnered with a recycling company called ‘Curb Cycle’. As proper recyclers, St Cyprian’s School will reduce our amount of waste going into landfill by more than 44%. Curb Cycle records the amount and type of recycling they collect from school every week. At time of writing, mid-October, we have recycled 400kg! Visible, colourful and clearly marked recycling bins are dotted around the campus and students and staff have been ‘schooled’ in correct waste disposal.

We have also partnered with an organic waste company called ‘Zero to Landfill Organics’, masters in managing food waste and compostable packaging. They collect all our food waste as well as our compostable packaging from the Courtyard Café. The compostable packaging can only be decomposed in extremely specific conditions. Bokashi bins are found at the Courtyard Café and boarding house kitchen for organic waste. Bokashi is a composting process that uses a micro-organism known as “bokashi bran” to ferment organic food waste. Food waste is added to air-tight bokashi bins and then layered with bokashi. ZTL Organics collects bins weekly to ensure that no organic waste ends up in landfills.

Containers, coffee cups, lids and straws from our coffee shop ‘Sips in the Woods’ and the Courtyard Café contribute largely to the school’s total amount of waste. Although Sips in the Woods’ cups and straws are labelled biodegradable, that should not be confused with being eco-friendly. Some biodegradable elements require a specialised, industrial-sized decomposing process method to be fully composted. We do not just want to recycle. We want to reduce the amount of waste on campus.

Thus, apart from having specific processes, expertise and partners in place, mindsets and attitudes require adjusting! From the start of the fourth and final term, an ‘attitudinal adjustment policy is at play at Sips in the Woods that requires students and staff to bring their own reusable cups and straws when buying your drink. Whilst this policy will not be enforced with parents and guests, we strongly encourage everyone to follow this policy to truly contribute to making a lasting and significant difference. St Cyprian’s School is selling ‘Girls in Blue Go Green’ re-usable flasks at the school clothing shop for R80.

Finally, we would like to reduce our waste in the Courtyard Café. Currently, the takeaway packaging is Styrofoam-based which although recyclable, is not ideal when contaminated with food. An additional imperative in curbing waste sits squarely on personal responsibility for a successful outcome. Term 4 kicked off with own container and cutlery required for the purchase of ‘hot lunch’. Pre-ordered lunch will still come in compostable containers which, as mentioned above will be disposed of in a separate bin and collected by ZTL Organics to be composted.

With drastic measures comes radical change and we’ve embarked on this journey to decrease our waste significantly and move away from convenience at our planet’s expense. We are ‘trapped’ in the single-use and quick-disposal system. Whilst this system is convenient and practical to our schedules, the impact is detrimental to our Earth. We are doing all we can to become conscious consumers and develop an ecoconscious environment at St Cyprian’s School.

Caitlin Williams (Head of Eco-Club), Kiera Matthysen (Head of Round Square) and Clare Acheson (High School Life Sciences Teacher)

In four months of 2022, St Cyprian’s School diverted the following from local landfills:

Compostables: 8kg

Food waste: 1295kg

Recyclables: 1747.5kg