St Michael’s Nursery awarded ‘plastic free’ status by Surfers Against Sewage

We are pleased to say that our friends at St Michael’s Nursery have recently been awarded Plastic Free Nursery status. The process is similar to the existing Plastic Free Business and Plastic Free Schools accreditation, but tailored specifically to a nursery environment. We’re so proud of all the hard work and dedication that the staff and children at St Michael’s have put into making this happen.

Here’s what St Michael’s Nursery had to say about their plastic free journey so far:

“At St. Michael’s Nursery, we are committed to providing high quality childcare and education in a safe and secure setting, with environmental sustainability at its core.

During our Eco-Hero sessions, the children learn all about their world with a little help from ‘Cheeky Monkey’, the Rainforest ambassador. Through education, books, activities, arts & crafts, the children set about making some big changes.

We recycle cardboard, paper, metal, glass & plastic. We dry our washing outside as much as possible. Prior to the pandemic, we kept fruit peelings for the compost. We hope to do this again soon.

It was hugely important to us to reduce the amount of single use plastic that we consume here. So, we made the switch to glass milk bottles from a local supplier instead. These bottles are taken away, sterilised and fresh milk is delivered to our doorstep.

We were shocked to discover that wet wipes can contain as much as 80% plastic (excluding the packaging) and therefore when they eventually start to break up in landfill they can cause problems with microplastics entering our food chain. So we decided to ditch them.”

We think that’s awesome - and so great that the children have been directly involved in the decision making process and the actions that the nursery have taken. 

You can read their full blog announcement here. 

Surfers Against Sewage now have tailored frameworks specifically for Nurseries and Schools so if your nursery or school would like to work towards plastic free status too, head on over to the Surfers Against Sewage website to find out how.

An important part of the work that we do here at Plastic Free North Devon is to support, empower, and champion individuals and businesses within our local community to take actions that will reduce their use of single use plastics, and the associated negative impacts on our environment. One of the ways that we do this is through plastic free audits within the Surfers Against Sewage plastic free communities framework, working with local businesses to help them achieve plastic free status. So if you have another kind of business and would like to work toward plastic free status, get in touch with us plasticfreenorthdevon@gmail.com once you’re ready to carry out a plastic free audit and get started on your own journey.