Carrie & David Grant in Tune with Support Your School Scheme to Raise £5m for UK Schools
Britain’s best known vocalist coaches, Carrie and David Grant from Fame Academy and Pop Idol, have today launched a new fundraising scheme which is aiming to raise £5m for UK schools through the collection of empty inkjet cartridges and unwanted mobile phones for re-use. The extra cash raised will come at an important time for schools given yesterday’s announcement of extensive budget cuts by Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children Schools & Families, which may well see an end to funding for initiatives such as after-school clubs.
In addition to raising cash for schools, the Support Your School campaign simultaneously aims to reduce by 10% the number of ink jet cartridges needlessly going to landfill, which take approximately 1,000 years to decompose. Carrie and David have produced a You Tube video for schools, children and parents which encourages scheme participation and which explains how to get involved.
Support Your School is free to participate in and aims to encourage school teachers, pupils, parents and the community to get involved in recycling and reducing schools’ carbon footprint, while simultaneously raising much needed additional income. Each participating school will be paid £1 for every inkjet cartridge and £3 for every mobile phone that is successfully recycled and reused.
Carrie and David said: “Support Your School is a fantastic scheme to teach children from nursery through to secondary school age about the importance of recycling, preventing unnecessary waste from going to landfill and how to achieve a more sustainable approach to the use of ink cartridges and mobiles.”
As parents of three children of 15, 8 and four, we encourage them to be energy efficient from switching off the lights to reusing paper. So, as a family, we welcome this scheme as a fun, easy way to get them actively involved in the ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ ethos for the benefit of their school. It’s a win-win for all,’ they added.
Carrie and David Grant, best-known for TV talent shows such as Fame Academy, Pop Idol and Comic Relief Does Fame Academy, are actively involved in developing young people’s learning and talent. They support and present The Learning Awards, Teaching Awards and UK Skills Awards and are Honorary Vice Presidents of ’4Children’ the after school kids club network.
According to recent figures from DEFRA, more than 35 million inkjet cartridges are needlessly disposed of in the UK each year – an equivalent of between 20-28,000 tonnes of plastic. Over 70% of these go straight into landfill, even though they could be reused up to four times or more and it is estimated that discarded plastics take over 1000 years to decompose.
A mobile phone contains 500 to 1000 components and in addition to the polluting plastics, many contain toxic heavy metals including lead, mercury, cadmium and beryllium and hazardous chemicals, such as brominated flame retardants. These dangerous substances cause serious pollution when the products are disposed of irresponsibly. By participating in the Support Your School recycling scheme, schools can help reduce this waste by collecting all used inkjet printer cartridges and send them for cleaning, refilling and redistribution, saving considerable amounts of carbon and oil.
“The “Support Your School” recycling scheme places the control of fundraising firmly in the hands of schools, helping them to reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill and helping to deliver the government’s sustainability targets for 2020,“ said the Support Your School Programme Manager, Allison Parkes.
Staff and pupils simply need to return their used inkjet cartridges and unwanted mobile phones in recycling bags or boxes provided. When the boxes are full, the school can book a free collection online at www.supportyourschool.co.uk or by calling a free phone number. A designated carrier will then visit the school as requested and collect the box. Depending on the size of the school, Support Your School can advise on recycling and funding targets.
“Each empty inkjet cartridge and unwanted mobile phone received through the Support Your School scheme is sorted, cleaned and graded according to stringent standards by our team of highly trained experts. Reusable cartridges are sent for refilling and reuse while mobile phones are sent for re-use to places including developing countries. We operate a zero landfill policy so all packaging materials are also recycled, nothing is sent to landfill,” continued Miss Parkes.
About Support Your School
Support Your School recycling scheme will be run by Environmental Business Products Ltd which, for 17 years, has been the Europe’s largest inkjet cartridge remanufacturer and supplier of private label cartridges to leading high street retailers. To date EBP have raised in excess of £4million, given to various UK and European charities to date through our recycling programmes.
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Tags: additional income, budget cuts, carbon footprint, children and parents, david grant, ed balls, empty inkjet cartridges, fame academy, fundraising scheme, ink jet cartridges, inkjet cartridge, landfill, participating school, pop idol, school campaign, school clubs, school teachers, sustainable approach, tv talent, unnecessary wasteComments Off
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