Waste paper usually lands in a rubbish bin, but at a rural Mpumalanga school it’s turned into special bricks that are used to make fire.
The initiative is part of intensive waste recycling and environmental education at Mhwayi Primary School in Clau-Clau tribal trust near Nelspruit. The multi-award winning school uses the waste paper bricks to fuel fires on which the children’s food is cooked.
‘The children soak waste paper in water overnight, and the next morning when it’s soft, they compact it into layers and let it dry,” explains principal Adronica Zulu. After two weeks, the bricks are ready for the hearth. ‘We save money on firewood, which the department doesn’t provide,” Zulu says.
Her deputy, Buyile Mavimbela, got the idea when she attended the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD). ‘She told us that in other countries one could be jailed or fined heavily for littering,” says Zulu. ‘That encouraged us to ask environmental organisations to help us with ideas on recycling.”
The school’s environmental awareness initiative also supplements the education department’s primary school nutrition scheme. The children only get beans and mealie-meal from the department, but grow their own vegetables such as tomatoes, onions and green peppers to boost their daily meal.
Zulu says the school’s environmental awareness campaign kicked off in earnest three years ago as part of a project by the provincial department of agriculture, conservation and environment. ‘We’ve had to overcome a number of hurdles along the way. We initially had no fence around the school, and every tree or herb we planted would be eaten by goats or stolen by traditional healers,” she said.
There’s also a shortage of water. The tap at the school doesn’t produce enough water to irrigate the gardens, so the school is building water holding tanks.
‘We would still like to have a community nursery, and a waste station where we’d separate rubbish into piles of papers, bottles and plastics, and then recycle them,” says Mavimbela.
‘The children and parents are motivated. It’s a good thing for the children because producing their own food and selling the surplus teaches them to be responsible,” she adds.
Maths teacher Fetsisang Moreku says that pupils are also putting theory into practice in the vegetable gardens. ‘They learn about centimetres in class and go out to measure vegetable beds, for instance,” Moreku said.
Grade 7 learner Veli George adds, ‘[The project] teaches us not to pollute our environment by dumping, and even at our homes we collect waste paper and make bricks,” he explains. — African Eye News Service