Garbage cemeteries, vegetables without plastic wraps and much more: this is the spectrum of ideas which twelve primary schools from Bavaria, Berlin, Hessne, Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg, Thuringia and North Rhine-Westphalia will implement in the coming months as part of the project A cycle for plastic – your ideas, our common future.

From August 20^th to October 19^th, 2018, primary schools in cooperation with school support associations were able to submit creative hands-on projects to Stiftung Bildung on the subject of A cycle for plastic. An expert jury selected the twelve best entries. The Röchling Foundation is now supporting their implementation.

The jury consisting of Felicitas von Hülsen, Board of Trustees of the Röchling Foundation, Maren Stancke, Chairwoman of the Saxon State Association of School Support Associations e.V. (SLSFV), Kristina Raab, Project Manager Education and Finance of the Environmental Foundation Michael Otto, Finn Siebold, Bildungswerk für Schülervertretung und Schülerbeteiligung e.V., Christoph Mause, Entrepreneur, Michael Herberger, Co-founder of the Söhne Mannheims, Charlotte Schüler, Influencer and Blogger, and Gisela Grimme, Principal of the Elisabeth Selbert School in Hameln, winner of the German School Award 2017 of the Robert Bosch Foundation, praised the creativity and innovative diversity of ideas.

One project, for example, uses ambassadors – so-called garbage heroes – to draw attention to the problem of waste at school and encourage others to collect and recycle it. They use the collected plastic waste to make T-shirts and backpacks.

In another project the students’ own cultivation of organic vegetables is intended to strengthen their self-sufficiency and save plastic waste in the form of food packaging. The projects start in 2019 and should be completed by the end of the year.

The winners are Montessori Wolfstein Freyung, Ganzheitliches Leben und Lernen aus Essing, Schulförderverein der Anna-Lindh-Schule Berlin, Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Ludwig-Geissler-Schule from Hanau, Schulförderverein “Freunde der Grundschule an der Wuhlheide” from Berlin, Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Schloss-Schule Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim from Ludwigshafen, Friends of the Karl-von-Ibell School Diez from Diez, Friends and Supporters of the Primary School An den Römersteinen Mainz-Zahlbach from Mainz, Friends of the Finow Primary School from Berlin, Friends of the Goldwiesen School from Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Friends of the Primary School Schleiz from Schleiz and Friends and Supporters of the GGS Alzeyer Street from Cologne.

The jurors were enthusiastic about the wealth of ideas of the primary school students on the subject of plastic and the environment.