“The totally natural way to reduce, reuse and recycle organic waste”

Napier Girls High School – Bokashi Bins in action

Students at Napier Girls High School have been involved in paper recycling for sometime now, but this year, they have included recycling of cans and food scraps too.

Marion Thomson from the Hastings Environmental Centre demonstrated the Bokashi Compost-Zing system for kitchen waste recycling and trained the students how to use it. The local Council kindly donated 6 Bokashi buckets which students and staff now enthusiastically fill with food scraps from the hostel, staffroom, International room and from the two quads where most girls have their lunch.

When full, the nutrient rich compost from the buckets is put back into the school grounds to improve the soil for the new gardens that are to be planted for the upcoming 125th celebrations in 2009. The girls also plan to design and plant out the area with plants from the "Paper for Trees" programme.

The Bokashi recycling is part of a programme that also includes a "Littometre" which the student Environmental Group use to assess the level of rubbish left every day as a way of increasing awareness of the problem. Also introduced this year, is to have the year 13 leavers' group plant a kowhai tree at the end of each year along a walkway through the school. This will raise environmental awareness, create a pleasant shade area and hopefully attract birds to the school.

Thanks to Ricky Freemantle and the Napier City Council; The Sustaining H.B. Trust; Marion Thomson and the Hastings Environmental Centre; and Onekawa Metal Recyclers for their assistance with the NGHS Environmental Programme.