Pukearu School

Since becoming an Enviroschool in 2006, Pukerau School have taken action to reduce their waste and help look after the environment for future generations.

After doing an ‘Enviro-survey’ last year, the students and teachers at Pukerau realized that some of their waste could be recycled instead of going in the rubbish bins. 

To get started, the school’s Nature and Environment Team (NET) decided to focus on food scraps, because these could be recycled on site by building a worm farm. 

As part of their worm farm project, the school did the following things:

• Had a presentation from their Enviroschool facilitator to learn about the theory of worm farming
• Visited a local worm farmer for ideas and information on how to set up a worm farm and care for worms
• Asked parents for help to supply and set up an old bathtub to house the worm farm, including a tailor-made lid to keep the rain out and the worms in
• Gathered together the bedding (horse manure, leaves and shredded paper)
• Set up the worm farm and added the worms (tiger worms)
• Started collecting food scraps from their lunches to feed the worms
• Checked the worm farm regularly to make sure the water was draining away and the worms were happy

After their worm farm had been running for a while, the students noticed they were supplying more food scraps than the worms could eat.  They would now like to start composting the extra food scraps in a rodent-proof composter, such as an Earthmaker.

Source: Southland Community Wastebusters Trust, Busting Waste Column