THE Nationwide Bin It! campaign got under way recently with visits to local schools including Blakestown Community School in Dublin 15.
This is the 13th year the Bin it! campaign has toured across the country, with 521 school visits and a total of 57,778 students having taken part since the campaign began in 2006.
Bin It! features an actor-led workshop, which visits first and second-year students in secondary schools across participating local authority areas.
The workshop incorporates a theatre-in-education session which encourages students to dispose of gum litter, and litter more generally, in a responsible manner.
Bin It! forms a vital component part of the Gum Litter Taskforce’ (GLT) gum litter education campaign, which seeks to encourage correct gum disposal.
“When the GLT campaign first began, litter accounted for 26.37 percent of all recorded litter,” said chairman of the GLT, Paul Kelly.
“The most recent report of the National Litter Monitoring Pollution System has shown that chewing gum now accounts for just 7.8 percent of all litter.
“This reduction points to the fact that the core principle underpinning the campaign, that is that the most effective way to reduce gum litter is to tackle it in the most sustainable way, by educating people of correct gum disposal, is working.
“The campaign however, would not have reached the level of success it has done today had it not been for the enthusiastic buy-in from young people in particular to initiatives such as Bin It! and I am delighted to see so many schools across the country sign up again this year.”
The workshop tour is supported by a website http://biniteducation.com which includes games and quizzes for students, lesson plans, teachers’ notes, posters and activity cards to help integrate the theme of responsible litter disposal into the curriculum.