The theory is that if you teach a child good habits early on, they stay with them forever. Inspiring kids and getting them to think about a subject at primary level is a proven way to inculcate them for life, whether that subject is history, science, or indeed the environment.

In UK schools there’s no doubt that teaching waste reduction and sustainability has increased during the last decade or so, but is there any evidence that it is leading to different patterns of behaviour in adult life, or is waste education simply an exercise of whistling in the dark?

With a comprehensive schools outreach programme at both secondary and primary level, Waste Watch is among the most prominent bodies involved in waste education. “Our Enhanced Programme means that we spend as much as a full school year with them”, explains the organisation’s Schools Engagement Team Leader, Luna Zabalza-Gomez. “This isn’t just doing educational activities but also looking at the structure of the school from a practical point of view – how they collect recyclables and who’s in charge of it. We also do one-off visits, but we’re trying to shift away from that because we believe it’s not as effective as trying to approach the whole school.”

Waste Watch uses what is known as the ‘action learning cycle’ model of teaching, a hands-on, practical way for students to learn. “The purpose of the lessons is that they lead the students to take some action on sustainability. We try to encourage debate and get other people to intervene as well. We try not to be all ‘giving them the right answer’; it’s more about making them think about it by themselves.”

The programme deliberately goes beyond just teaching kids about recycling and tries to educate them about the waste hierarchy (a concept that many of their parents are unaware of). “We insist very much on the three Rs”, says Zabalza-Gomez. “If it’s an assembly and we want to make them think about reducing then we focus on the fact that everything needs energy and water and if we use too much of those things then it is a waste of resources, so we need to use less.”

Outreach work is also undertaken by a number of local councils. North East Lincolnshire is just one that has a programme that is put into primary schools in their locality. “We take assemblies or do in-class workshops with them”, says Waste Minimisation Officer Joanna Boardman. “We might do a paper recycling workshop where we show the children the whole process behind recycling and show them how much energy and water it takes to reprocess materials. Then we’ll discuss sustainability and about how if we are able to reduce waste then we don’t have to think about how we’re going to get rid of it or reuse it so much.”

Boardman is convinced that, having absorbed these lessons, the kids use pester power in a positive way. “Quite often we get children coming up to us at the end of the workshop saying: ‘We haven’t got the boxes at home.’ So we give them the phone number for their mums and dads to ring. I’m sure it has an effect. Often it’s a case that people just haven’t got round to it yet, so it’s just that extra nudge really.”

Waste Watch is also confident that its waste lessons have the intended effect. It claims it has brought about ‘real measurable improvements in environmental performance’. During and after the Enhanced Programmes, it monitors the performance of the school in terms of the volumes it recycles, and the routines and knowledge of both students and staff about sustainability and recycling. Zabalza-Gomez elaborates: “We also monitor the knowledge of the students and the staff before and after; we ask them about the three Rs, we ask them to tell us what the right order is, we ask them to tell us what can and cannot be recycled, and we compare the difference before and after. We also monitor the routines in the schools and any barriers they are facing, like why... they are not managing to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as they can.”

But waste education is not without its difficulties. Teaching kids about reduction and reuse runs counter to many of the consumerist messages they’re bombarded with as soon as they step outside the school gate. (See last issue’s feature on child commercialisation for more on this.) So how do teachers get round these challenges?

“It is tricky, but we lead by example I guess”, suggests Zabalza-Gomez. “We talk about how we take cotton bags when we go shopping so we don’t use the plastic ones, or how we always carry an old mobile phone because it still works really well. They are shocked obviously, but then they see that it is possible and that it doesn’t mean that you’re a weird person or anything. But I think because we are not with them so much, it’s only the other teachers that can really change that kind of behaviour.”

The question of whether it’s possible to teach sustainability in a really effective way within the main curriculum is a matter of some debate. “It’s taught within some elements of the curriculum, most specifically geography and science, at a primary level”, says Andrew Suter, Education Programmes Manager of Eco Schools England. “But it isn’t as developed as many people would like. Some schools do it very, very well, but many don’t do it at all. The general trend is that it’s not an active part of the curriculum, or it’s not seen as important as some of us think it should be.”

Over 17,000 schools participate in the Eco Schools programme in England, with over 1,700 achieving the Eco Schools highest award, the Green Flag. But Suter is critical of the current government for dropping the National Sustainable Schools Framework, a policy strategy that set a target of 2020 for all British schools to become ‘models of sustainability’. “The current government’s position with schools, as it is with a lot of other sectors, is that they are giving them the freedom to make their own decisions. The materials are still available, but they are not actively promoting it any more, much to our frustration. Previously, they were being audited for sustainability during Ofsted visits, but now they’re not even required to do that.”

To add to this, the financial situation is also having an impact on the ability of local authorities to provide sustainability outreach lessons. North Lincolnshire is one of many that are having to cut their cloth accordingly. “It means that we’re having to rethink how we do things”, says Boardman. “We’re developing some cartoons and DVDs so even if we don’t have enough officers or time to actually go and give a personal talk then hopefully they will get the same messages.”

“We’re seeing the same trend around the country”, confirms Suter. “Recycling and waste reduction education is seen as one of those things that is easy to cut from a budget to reduce costs. You might argue that that’s naive given the savings they could make if you bed in sustainability.”

Indeed. While there’s plenty of positive work being done at grassroots level, it does appear that for the moment trying to effect change on a national scale is something of an uphill battle. One suspects that it will be a while yet before UK schools can be held up as beacons for sustainability.