Wooler First School has won the McVitie’s Biscuit Wrapper Roundup recycling contest, winning the £250 top prize and a prize hamper.    ...

Wednesday Nov 27 | Posted by: roboblogger | Full story: Berwick Advertiser

Wooler First School has won the McVitie’s Biscuit Wrapper Roundup recycling contest, winning the £250 top prize and a prize hamper.   A staggering 7,800 used biscuit wrappers were collected by the schools network of collectors and the wider local community during the six month contest which ended in October. Wooler First School beat off strong competition from participating locations all over the UK including runners up, the Women’s Aid Charity in Grimsby and the third placed Preemies UK children’s charity in Droitwich. In the end though the sterling efforts of local people across Wooler and Glendale helped the school’s pupils secure top place. Whilst biscuit wrappers are recyclable, very little mixed plastic recycling is carried out by local council kerbside collections as they simply do not have the infrastructure. This results in billions of biscuit wrappers being sent to landfill. This prompted McVitie’s and recycling experts TerraCycle to join together to launch the McVitie’s Biscuit Wrapper Brigade. The scheme encourages consumers to use freepost labels to send in any brand of used biscuit wrappers to be recycled into everyday products such as watering cans, garden benches and waste bins. Dave Sage, scheme administrator at Wooler First School said: “Wooler First School is delighted to have won the Biscuit Wrapper Roundup and would like to say a huge thank you to everyone locally who helped us by saving their biscuit wrappers for us; especially to the Blood Doning Centre in Newcastle, Roddam WI and other community groups. “Since we began collecting various types of waste packaging with TerraCycle a year ago, we have saved an incredible 32,435 pieces of waste from local landfill raising £1,333 which the school is using to buy additional classroom resources and forest school equipment. “This is only the beginning though as we are collecting various types of waste with TerraCycle on an ongoing basis.” Anyone wishing to help can simply drop their used biscuit wrappers, pens, baby food pouches, baby wipes packaging and coffee packaging of any brand and Activia, Actimel and Shape yogurt pots back to the 24/7 access outdoor collection point at the Cheviot Centre.

Wooler School's Recycling Efforts Take the Biscuit

A village school has wrapped up a national recycling award thanks to the efforts of the surrounding community - and their taste for biscuits. Wooler First School, in rural Northumberland, has won the nationwide recycling contest to save the most used biscuit wrappers from landfill. A total of 7,800 used biscuit wrappers were collected by the school’s network of collectors and the wider local community in the Glendale area during the six-month McVitie’s Biscuit Wrapper Round up contest, which ended in October. Though the village school has only 113 pupils, it was aided in its recycling efforts by the Roddam WI and blood donor groups in the North East.