Trim girls turn cans and bottles into iPods

Scoil Mhuire Secondary School, Trim, topped the league for the 2007/2008 in a new recycling initiative where students bring their used bottles and cans and put them in a reverse vending machine for recycling. This year, the project is again running and since the students returned to school in September, already 4,000 bottles and cans have been collected. There were 10 schools participating in last year"s Reuse Reward Recycling League and all had a reuser machine on their premises that accepts plastic bottles and aluminium cans and rewards students with items such as iPods, mobile phones and camcorders. Scoil Mhuire recycled more than 17,000 containers in the final eight weeks of the school year to be crowned champions and the students claimed more than €5,000 in prizes. Scoil Mhuire also took advantage of the sports prizes available and received €1,000 in sports equipment. As they were the top school in the country, students from Scoil Mhuire were also pictured for the brochure. The other three schools in Meath which participated successfully were St Patrick"s Classical School in Navan, Eureka Secondary school in Kells and Ashbourne Community School. When the girls put their cans and bottles into the vending machine, they are issued with a receipt and, when they have enough points, they can redeem prizes. Scoil Mhuire principal Jacqueline Maher explained that the children have a specific time at either break-time or lunchtime where they go to the vending machine and they work with school caretaker Pascal McKenna, who looks after the vending machine. Last year, the best senior class earned a trip to Dublin and prizes this year include iPod Shuffles, camcorders, Ninetendo DS consoles, Nintendo Wii, personal DVD players and interactive white boards for the classroom. Between 125 and 6,000 points are required for the items and, for each plastic bottle, students get one point and for each can they get six points. 'The girls really took it on board and it was a great privilege for them to be pictured on the brochure. Our environmental officer Ruth Sheridan really took the project on board and created awareness in the school that it was not just about the prizes but it is nice to be rewarded,' said the principal. She added that there is not a bottle or can to be seen around the place. School caretaker Pascal McKenna said: 'It is going very well. The kids are very interested and the prizes they are given are out of this world.' Mr McKenna said that, since the school opened re-opened this year, they have collected 4,000 cans and bottles. He said that, in total last year, they collected 15,000-20,000 for the year but did not start until November. He explained that the vending machine flattens the bottles and cans and they are collected every three weeks from the school and are taken away to be recycled.