Your World video competition: A guide to running a Zero Waste Week at your school

With extreme weather throughout the summer, sports events delayed by climate-related incidents, and future generations becoming increasingly aware of the imminent dangers of the climate crisis, sustainability can no longer be an afterthought in science class. It needs to sit front and centre in education. 

Schools hold the key to preparing young people for the realities of life in a net-zero future. The skills needed to tackle the climate crisis are the same skills that modern education strives to build: critical thinking, collaboration and problem solving.

So, how can educators start embedding sustainability into education? A Zero Waste Week is a great place to start. It’s fun, practical and encourages the whole school to connect climate awareness to their everyday actions.

Regardless of whether your goal is to eliminate single-use plastics, reduce food waste or simply get staff and students to adopt a more sustainable approach, a Zero Waste Week can get things started with a bang.

Step 1: Audit before action

You can’t start reducing your waste until you understand where you’re starting from. So, before setting out your goals, a simple waste audit is a great place to begin.

There is no need to buy any fancy tools or set up detailed spreadsheets. Just collect and count or weigh the rubbish produced from key areas from school. Remember to take note of the most commonly ´thrown away´ items from the following areas too. 

1. Classrooms
2. Canteen
3. Playground
4. Staffroom

Is there a lot of food waste? Too much single-use plastic? Piles and piles of unused printed worksheets? The goal of the audit isn’t to point fingers, but to gather information. This data will allow you to focus your efforts where you can make the biggest difference. 

Allow your students to lead the audit. This will empower them and give them ownership of the challenge. It’s a powerful demonstration of how maths and data can be used to solve real world problems.

Step 2: Launch with purpose

A Zero Waste Week only works if everyone buys in. So, building schoolwide engagement is an important next step after your audit. 

Start by raising awareness. Hold an assembly, get the school social media team involved, and ask the students who are leading the project to create their own launch videos. Make sure they choose a clear theme and set a simple goal, e.g. reducing plastic, paper or food waste. If you’re feeling especially ambitious, you could set different goals for different year groups. 

Invite families to get involved at home too. Add a note to the school newsletter, or send a message to parents explaining the project and sharing a couple of small challenges which parents can try, for example preparing plastic-free packed lunches, or sharing recipes which use up leftovers.

Step 3: Empower your students

This is the easiest step of all and takes a great deal of work away from the teachers and academic teams. 

Get your students to take the lead. Let them take the roles of waste monitors or eco ambassadors. Give them the freedom to create posters, write announcements and organise games and activities to help keep the waste as close to zero as possible. 

The more ownership the students have of the initiative, the more they’re going to feel empowered to make a difference. For more ideas on how to encourage student participation in school projects, you can also read our blog How to inspire your students for the Your World video competition.

Step 4: Promote active staff participation 

Teachers are role models – and their actions make a difference. So the entire teaching staff, from senior leadership to support staff, need to set an example by actively and openly joining in. Sharing their wins and challenges related to Zero Waste Week will only lead to a better connection with their students.

Each department could run their own little mini challenge that is linked to their subject: 

• Science: explore decomposition rates or design a better bin system
• English: write persuasive letters or campaign messages
• Art: make installations using upcycled materials
• Maths: track and graph the school’s progress

Step 5: Create practical climate solutions at every level

Curriculum links

Could climate topics be built into lessons throughout the year and beyond our Zero Waste Week? Could school leaders map the activities from the Zero Waste Week and beyond to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals? 

Classroom ideas

Use the Zero Waste Week as a springboard for creativity. Get students to track their own habits at home. Challenge your class to go a full day without needing to put anything in the bin.  

Student-led change

This is the key to a Zero Waste Week legacy of reducing waste. Everyone can get involved. The younger students take part in litter picks or recycling games and turn what they discover into exciting stories. Older students can make vlogs to keep people up-to-date on social media, leading discussions or even starting a new sustainability campaign. 

Some schools have plastic-free lunch days, Others have created upcycled fashion shows, or even started swap shops to reduce clothing waste (especially useful when it comes to school uniforms). 

The aim should never be perfection. It should be to encourage thinking, talking and, most importantly of all, acting to make education more sustainable and thus their environments as well.

Connect your week to the Your World video competition

If your students have been sparked into action then the Your World video competition is a great next step.  Ask them to document what they did during Zero Waste Week. What did they learn? What will they do next?

It is a fantastic way to connect your school’s local actions to a global audience, and get inspired by other schools doing similar work around the world.

Step 6: Celebrate – and keep momentum going

At the end of the week, hold a short celebration to showcase your results. Show what the school achieved. Maybe a few classes stopped using plastic water bottles altogether or reduced their plastic bin bags by half. Did the canteen invest in real cutlery and stop handing out plastic forks, or replace plastic cups with reusable ones? 

Take photos and share your results in a school newsletter or video. Give students the chance to talk about what they learnt.

The most important thing is to keep the momentum going. Choose one or two changes you can easily stick to. Maybe it’s a ban on plastic water bottles or a food donation programme from the canteen. Perhaps a switch to paperless homework is the way for you to go. Even these tiny steps can help your school and students to build long-term change.

Final thoughts

A Zero Waste Week is more than a simple sustainability project. It helps the whole student body develop awareness, leadership, a sense of responsibility and a feeling that they really can be the change they want to see in the world. It brings lessons to life in a way that is meaningful and memorable. 

Maybe one school won’t change the world, but a successful Zero Waste Week can show students that they have the power to make a difference. Share that story with the world and join the Your World video competition and inspire others to act.