Khun Chai, a local pig farmer, now collects all of our food scraps- plate waste from the canteen, in addition to the kitchen waste that is generated during food preparation. This is reducing waste (approximately two full garbage bags per school day) that was previously incinerated down in Phuket Town. Unplated food waste that is not served is carefully repackaged and gifted to Scholars Of Sustenance.

All green garden waste is now being composted. Leaf clippings, hedge cuttings etc are all now composted in a trenching style system on-site at Thanyapura. This new practice will minimize waste that was previously taken to Phuket Town for incineration. According to Thanyapura, this is reducing approximately 150 bags of waste per month.

Grade 2 has created their own garden space that has been an asset to many students’ learning across the Early and Primary Years Programmes. Plans have been made to extend this garden space to create a school community garden, including water catchment and a student-designed compost system nearby.

Teachers had a workshop for the gardeners and housekeeping staff, to inform them of current and upcoming student-initiated projects. The discussions were based on how we can all work together more efficiently and sustainably. It was also a good opportunity to show our appreciation for all of the hard work that they already do for us.

Mangrove planting has continued as part of grade 4’s Service Learning experience, planting at a new conservation site in Ban Para. Students planted approximately 500 mangroves, of which 180 were raised in our own mangrove nursery. This brings the total planted through the MANTA program to approximately 15,000 trees. We are looking into the possibility of carbon offsetting for our school.

This Co-Curricular Activity has designed a system to store our disused batteries, with three areas for drop off available- at each entrance of the school, and additionally at the front door of the school reception. Please bring any used batteries to dump in these stores to save any risk of pollution- they are already filling up fast! There are currently no known recycling systems for used batteries in Thailand, so we shall store them until we find a responsible solution.