Pupils come up with recycling plans for shopping mall

PUPILS from Renfrew High School spent two days experiencing life at a busy shopping centre after being asked to come up innovative ways to recycle more waste.

The third year pupils were invited to spend the time at intu Braehead as part of their school’s close links with the shopping centre to complete a business challenge to develop new ways to encourage shoppers and retailers to recycle their rubbish.

The idea was to engage with the pupils to not only make them think about recycling, but how a business can play its part in helping save the environment.

Two groups of pupils devised very different ideas to encourage recycling.

The winning group came up with the concept of colour coded recycling bins with shoppers being rewarded with points on a card every time they recycled a piece of rubbish. The points can then be traded in for an intu Braehead gift card.

A leaflet encouraging people to recycle designed by the winning group will be used in the shopping mall as it is being professionally printed for shoppers to pick up and read.

The second group came up with the idea of a hi-tech recycling bin with a camera that recognised what type of waste product the customer was holding and then automatically opened the lid of the specific bin for cardboard, plastic or glass.

Billy Burke, Head Teacher, Renfrew High said: “I am very grateful to the team at intu Braehead for hosting another Renfrew High Business Project.

“The teams of young people worked really well together, displaying the skills for work required to be successful in employment. They rose to the challenge set and displayed creativity, problem solving and excellent communication skills.

“This was an invaluable experience for them in their learning journey and will stand them in good stead for the future.”

Caroline McColl, Employability Co-ordinator, at Renfrew High added: “This was yet another fabulous experience with intu Braehead and our S3 Business Partnership Project.

“If only the employability skills learned by our young people over the two days could bottled.

“We’d like to thank the team at intu Braehead for an extremely relevant environmental waste management project brief.

“I’m so proud of our young people who cam up with such innovative and passionate presentations.”

Community development manager at intu Braehead, Lydia Brown said: “The pupils from both groups taking part showed great inventiveness and practical awareness of the need to recycle more.

“The leaflet that the winning group designed will certainly be put to good use and I’m sure the pupils will be excited to see their idea become a reality.”