Waterford Schools compete to win a €10,000 Eco-garden

Wednesday, 2nd May 2012

Viking for Schools, the schools supplies channel of Office Depot, a leading global provider of office products and services, is asking pupils from Waterford to design a Little Litterbug to win their school an eco-garden up to the value of ?10,000.

The children, 11 years of age and under, are going head-to-head with pupils from across the UK, in the “Little Litterbug” competition, run by Viking for Schools in partnership with European Recycling Platform (ERP), Ireland's only pan-European compliance scheme for electrical and electronic waste and battery recycling. The budding artists will take part by drawing, colouring or painting a Little Litterbug: a creature or a machine that can recycle their classroom’s waste and turn it back into something useful for their school.

The competition, which is now open for entries, encourages pupils to think about the environment and the impact their rubbish has on the eco-system. The deadline for entries is Friday 20th July and from an initial shortlist the winning entrant will be chosen by a representative of ERP. The winning school will receive a ?10,000 eco-garden, designed specifically for their school.

Jackie Buckwell, Environment Manager at Office Depot, said: “The competition is a great way of engaging children when it comes to teaching them about the environment. By asking pupils to design their own Little Litterbug, teachers have the opportunity to encourage creativity and also re-enforce the importance of recycling.”

Yvonne Holmes, Head of Corporate Communications at ERP Ireland added “At ERP we are continually looking for new and engaging ways to educate the younger generation about the importance of electrical waste and used battery recycling and what better way than drawing on their creativity to create their own Little Litterbug! We are really looking forward to seeing the entries and wish all participating schools the best of luck in the competition.”