Our planet – our responsibility
At the end of last year bpha published its first Sustainability Report which you can read on our website www.bpha.org.uk. It includes our existing activities and plans to operate sustainably and responsibly. It covers our commitment to carbon reduction, improving the efficiency and fabric of homes, running a sustainable business and supporting the health and wellbeing of our residents and colleagues.
It’s also great to see the commitment to sustainability from others, including Shackleton School in Bedford.
An easy way to make a positive contribution is to recycle our waste. It’s surprising how small changes can make a difference. For instance, recycling one aluminium can will save enough energy to power a TV for up to three hours. While recycling paper uses 70% less energy than making it from raw materials.
In the UK, we only recycle around 45% of recyclable waste so there’s a lot more we can do. Our campaign, called Talking Trash, encourages more recycling.
As part of the campaign, and to mark National Recycling Week, we teamed up with pupils at Shackleton Primary School in Bedford to promote recycling in our neighbourhoods.
Pupils designed posters for display in bin stores across bpha sites.
450 children took up the challenge, with teachers whittling the entries down to 10 designs for our judges. Priya and Maja, two of the four chosen winners, helped to put up their posters at a local bin store.
Rosetta Triolo, our Community Engagement Manager, organised the competition and said: “Pupils at the school were already learning about environmental initiatives so the recycling competition fitted perfectly with the school’s curriculum. You can see that a lot of thought has gone into the winning designs and we were overwhelmed with the number and quality of entries.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for residents to recycle their waste. In areas where we have bin stores, there are separate crates for plastic, tins, paper and cardboard. We hope the posters will not only encourage residents to put their waste into the correct bins but also give them a sense of pride that they’re doing something positive for our younger generation.”
As a thank you to the children, bpha donated book tokens to the school and the four winners.