Sherborne Primary School is now a ‘Plastic-free school’ after achieving accreditation from Surfers Against Sewage.

Plastic Free Schools is a pupil-led initiative designed to help guide schools through the process of ditching single-use plastic - from conducting a single-use plastic audit of the school, to challenging government and industry and removing single-use plastic items from the school for good.

Sherborne Primary’s Eco Committee, made up of pupils from Years 1 to 6, has led on the campaign to rid the school of single-use plastics.

They started by using ‘Trash mobs’ to conduct litter picks around the school and identify the single-use plastics that they wanted to ban from the school.

They decided the key items were milk cartons that come with plastic straws and lots of plastic wrapping, single-use hand sanitiser sprays, and the cakes and cookies served at lunchtime which were all individually wrapped in plastic and created huge amounts of waste.

The Eco Committee created a petition which was signed by all staff and students, asking the companies involved to remove all single-use plastics. As a result, the school now uses washable beakers for milk, refillable hand sanitisers, and cardboard trays for cakes and cookies. All of which has dramatically reduced the amount of plastic waste on the school site.

As well as writing to these suppliers, the Eco Committee have also held assemblies, written to their local MP, and also to Walkers crisps, as this was another source of litter found on the school site.

Fran Ellis, teacher at Sherborne Primary and the Eco Committee lead said: “Although the ‘Plastic-free school’ accreditation has now been achieved, our campaigning will continue. The children truly believe that this is a cause worth fighting for, and we are determined to make our school and local community as green as possible!”