A primary school in Ballyclare, Northern Ireland, has become the first in the country to send zero waste to landfill.

Fairview Primary School had implemented a plan by environmental education programme Eco-Schools to help it reach its target of sending nothing to landfill.

Pupils were given lessons on how to reduce waste, recycle and reuse items such as paper and plastic. The school also implemented an anti-litter campaign to help reduce waste on site.

Environment Minister Mark H Durkan visited the school today (30 January) and learned of the school’s progress through the Eco-Committee, a group of pupils who lead the school and the wider community on green behaviour.

Congratulating the school on its achievement, Durkan said: “I greatly commend Fairview. When you see their work being done here on the ground in Ballyclare, it really brings it home to you how effective the Eco-Schools project is. It has been fascinating to see the school put its no waste policy into practice throughout the school.”

Durkan has previously called on all schools in Northern Ireland to register with the Eco-Schools programme, and to date, 92 per cent have done so. Today, he called on the remaining 87 schools to join the “young eco-army and take up the environmental gauntlet”.

Northern Ireland sends record low to landfill

The news comes just weeks after provisional waste and recycling figures for the country showed that it sent 45.1 per cent of waste for recycling or composting between July and September 2013, a ‘new quarterly peak’.

According to the provisional ‘Northern Ireland Local Authority Collected (LAC) Municipal Waste Management Statistics July – September 2013’, local authorities sent over two per cent more material for recycling and composting than during the same period the previous year (when they recycled or composted 42.8 per cent).

Landfill rates also continued to fall last summer, with 47.4 per cent of waste sent to landfill in the second quarter of 2013/14, the lowest quarterly landfill rate on record (breaking the previous record, set the three months before).

Speaking at the time, Durkan attributed the rise in recycling (and fall in landfilling) to a ‘continued improvement in both household and non household recycling’, as well as higher levels of composting (due to ‘good weather’).

Durkan went on to ‘encourage’ people to check what they can recycle in their area by visiting their council’s website or Rethink Waste NI.