The college Green Machine is a group of environmentally motivated students from across all year levels within the college. They meet every Wednesday at 8am in the conference room to plan for projects that fall under the banner of Sustainability.
The group takes responsibility for educating visitors to the college about our many initiatives including the Moorooboon Wetland, our Urban Forest, renewable energy projects, water saving initiatives, Harvest Garden and our new Meditation and Indigenous Cultural Centre.
Initiatives in the planning stage that the Green Machine will undertake include the construction of vertical gardens to the piazza area and an innovative QR coding project in the wetland and forest to allow visitors to undertake self guided tours that will explain the important features of the flora and fauna of our site and how they were utilised by the traditional owners.
The Green Machine frequently attend sustainability conferences and regularly present at these to students, teachers and the public.
Membership is voluntary and students joining the group have a passion and commitment to living sustainably and creating sustainable futures.
Green Machine – Waste and Litter Reduction
The Bentleigh Secondary College Green Machine has been working to improve the litter and waste throughout the school grounds. We have spoken in whole school and year level assemblies to inform the students of the consequences of littering around the grounds and have incorporated a litter raffle where staff will include students in a raffle if they are seen taking the initiative to pick up the litter around the grounds. Unfortunately, students continue to chose to litter the school grounds with rubbish.
On Monday the 6th of August, the green machine students found a turtle in our college wetlands who had choked on a piece of plastic which students had neglected to place in the bins. Ruby Lowe, the college’s sustainability captain shared this information with the student body in year level assemblies the following week. Since this time, the college has seen a dramatic decrease in litter around the school, an amazing reflection of the commitment of our students to the unique flora and fauna within our school. There is still a way to go, however, and the school has signed the “Straw No More” campaign. The canteen will no longer offer straws to the student body when they collect their drinks.
Parents can help to support our college to reduce its waste by using as little plastic and waste in student lunches as possible. Waste that does not go into the bins ends up in our wetlands or in the gutters where it is more likely to end up in Port Phillip Bay.
Image courtesy of Asher Forrest, 8.8 (Green Machine Photographer)