Keep cups keep litter away

Three Southwest students passionate about eliminating plastic have introduced a keep cup initiative at their school after seeing a shocking amount of litter on local beaches.

Manea Senior College Year 12 students Chloe Capp, Aleena Forrest-Smith and Jasmyne Beauglehole came up with the idea as part of the school’s United Nations Innovation Unit which encourages students to develop innovative solutions to local problems.

Working with school canteen staff, the students sourced the supplier of the keep cup and helped develop the design.

They presented the idea to the school which then committed to providing every student and staff member with a keep cup to create a sustainable school environment.

Student Chloe Capp said they were inspired to undertake the project after conducting beach clean-ups and collecting discarded disposable cups and straws.

“After seeing the sheer amount of litter we collected, we decided to come up with a project to reduce any potential rubbish that could come from our school,” she said.

“By working alongside our canteen staff, we decided that we’d like to start using reusable cups to reduce the amount of rubbish the college produces.”

Chloe said it was important to educate students about sustainability.

“By encouraging sustainability in schools, we believe we’ll be able to raise awareness about the devastating impacts of climate change and the millions of lives it is impacting,” she said.

“We’d love to see our teachers and fellow students use the keep cups and make other active sustainable changes in their lives.

“It is extremely important we encourage others to make these changes to protect our beautiful local environment and wildlife.

“We are hoping to expand this project, along with our Storm Chasers beach clean-up, to other schools in the region. While the change may not be easy in the beginning, it pays off in the end.”