2025 Sustainability Captains

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Hi, we are Lena and Elliott, the 2025 Sustainability Captains!

We are honoured to have the role of Sustainability Captains, as it is crucial to have a healthy environment at Wheelers Hill Primary School.  We love our school because of how all the students put their efforts to help and benefit our school in not just sustainability, but many other things too. It is just amazing to see our peers work hard to aid our school.

WHPS has various programs to help maintain our school’s magnificent sustainability.

Recently, our school reached 5 stars in our sustainability, only because our whole school contributed to our programs. Some programs that we have are- The Five Bin System, Nude Food Day, Composting, School Pride and many other programs. Every classroom has five different bins: Paper, Compost, Recycling, Soft Plastics and Landfill. Landfill is the smallest bin, so we can reduce the amount of waste in our school. Each week, there are two classes selected to do school pride. They walk around the school, watering plants, mulching, picking up rubbish and weeding.

When we received our 5th sustainability star, we had a celebration. Everybody wore green, walked to school and we took a special photo.

We are grateful to have this opportunity to represent our school in sustainability. Make sure you put things in the right bin, so unwanted waste is not buried underground!

The Great Clothing Exchange!  

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Do you or your family have good quality clothing you have outgrown or no longer wear? 

Sustainable Monash is hosting a mega clothing exchange event for kids, teens and adults. 

Get along to Monash Civic Centre on Saturday 30 November from 10am – 1pm to exchange or donate good quality clothing for the same amount of new preloved items.  

Reusing clothes means we are keeping these items in circularity rather than going to landfill, helping to create a more sustainable Monash. 

Free ticketed event. Register at www.monash.vic.gov.au/clothes-swap   

Energy Reduction

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Following on from our Energy Audit earlier this year, we have now completed our RSS energy module. Since starting the ResourceSmart Schools program we have reduced our power use by 393,180 kWh (equal to powering 68 houses each year) and saved $29,307 on  our electricity bills! 

We have also reduced our carbon emissions by the equivalent of removing 265 petrol powered cars off the road every year. Wow! Great work Wheelers Hill Primary School Community!

We are still looking to reduce this further and are looking to install solar panels in the near future.

Wheelers Hill Lions Club BBQs

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On Saturday the 21st of September, and Saturday the 12th of October, Wheelers Hill Lions Club held 2 BBQs to help raise money to fix our Water Tanks. We had a variety of students and families come past to buy a sausage or two, and some staff as well!

We just want to say a huge thank you to the Wheelers Hill Lions Club for raising $2,400 for our school, to the Lions Club volunteers and the WHPS staff who gave their time to man the BBQs.

We live in such a fantastic community, and it was amazing to get out there and see so many people people giving generously.

Fundraiser Update

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Thank you!!

We have been able to update our Water Tank Fundraiser tally and we are now over the halfway point! Thank you to all your contributions via the Mother’s Day Stall, Father’s Day Stall, ICAS and to those who came to buy a sausage from one (or both!) of the Wheelers Hill Lions Club BBQs, we have now raised just over $12,000! This is a huge achievement and we could not do it without you all.

Thank you once again.

5 Bin System at WHPS

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We are Ellie and Elvin, your Sustainability Captains, and we’d like to remind you of the 5 different bins at Wheelers Hill PS.

Landfill

In the landfill bin, we place bandaids, straws, yoghurt pouches, plastic cutlery and more!

The most common misplaced items in here are pencil sharpenings and tissues (these belong in compost).

The landfill bin is collected weekly by a big skip truck and sent to a tip.

Recycling

In the recycling bin, we place empty tissue boxes, cardboard boxes, a ball of scrunched foil and hard plastics like juice bottles.

The most common misplaced item in here is paper.

The recycling bin is collected fortnightly by the local council truck and sent to a recycling facility.

Paper

In the paper bin, we place paper offcuts and any unusable pieces of paper.

The most common misplaced items in here are laminated pages (this belongs in landfill) and cardboard (this belongs in recycling).

The paper bin is collected fortnightly by a speciality paper truck and sent to a paper recycling facility.

Compost

In the compost bin, we place food scraps, fruit peel and tissues

The most common misplaced item in here is paper.

The classroom compost bin is emptied twice a week and collected weekly by the local council and sent to a composting facility.

Soft Plastics

In the soft plastics bin, we place chip packets and any plastic that can be scrunched up.

The most common misplaced item in here is cling wrap (this belongs in landfill).

The soft plastics bin is collected multiple times a term by parent helpers and deposited to the Monash Recycling Centre.

Wheelers Hill PS works very hard to help the environment by collecting waste in these 5 bins. You can do your part by making sure you are using the correct ones for your waste. Keep up the great work everyone!

Message in a Bottle

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CDS Vic is turning one and celebrating with a 'Message in a Bottle' installation that showcases the life cycle of a plastic bottle and the importance of recycling.

If you are a primary school student in Victoria, you can be part of the installation.

https://cdsvicmessageinabottle.com.au/

Submit the form by 20th September and you will have the chance to have your message included in the installation for visitors at Scienceworks to see from 1 November 2024 to 27 January 2025.

After the summer holiday period, the installation may travel to other locations around Victoria. Submissions will be selected based on quality and their relevance to recycling.

Energy Audit 2024

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In Term 2, the Sustainability Team got together to complete an Energy Audit on appliances around the school. Emma and Cindy from Resource Smart Schools came out with some special tools to help us measure the amount of energy various appliances use.

They helped us discover just how much energy we use as a school, and we took note of where we could minimise the amount of energy we use, to save our school money and to help save the Earth!

Thank you to Emma and Cindy for helping us out, and thanks to the amazing Sustainability Team for working together to complete the Energy Audit!

Illustrators for Sustainability

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On the first week of June, 2EB collaborated with Eric, a Year 9 student at Caufield Grammar School. Eric had written a book about Climate Change and how we can be more sustainable, and asked 2EB to create some illustrations to complete the picture story book.

2EB were definitely up to the task and created some fantastic illustrations showing the story of Snowy the Polar Bear and his plight to save the ice caps from melting.

Here’s what the class thought about it:

“I learned about the different things we can do to be more sustainable and it made me feel included because I like drawing.” - Siyan

“The book was about climate change and the hole in the ozone layer down in Antarctica because of the greenhouse gasses. It made me feel important and I enjoyed being so creative and colourful.” - Aarahn

“It was pretty fun because we got to be creative and do drawings. I felt a bit nervous because I didn’t want to mess up, but we did really well!” - Chloe

Bins around School

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Thank you to everyone who brings in items to be recycled!

Miss Richards and Mrs Bartleton took a trip to Monash Council Recycling Centre to drop off all the items that we can recycle through them. It was great to see just how many items can be recycled, which stops them from going into landfill!

Just a remindere of the bins we have on site.

In the Staff Carpark, we have:

  • Small electronics

  • Clothing

In the small bins in the Sustainability Hub in A Block (outside Mrs Spicer’s office), we have:

  • Batteries

  • Mobile Phones

  • Light globes (twisty ones only can be recylced through Monash Council)

  • Pens and Markers

  • Bread Tags

  • Ink Cartriges

  • Bottle Caps

2024 Sustainability Captains

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2024 Sustainability Captains

Hello, Elvin and Ellie here! We are the Sustainability Captains for WHPS 2024.

I am Ellie and I wanted to become Sustainability Captain because our planet is heading into a time of crisis, we only have one earth and taking care of our planet is essential. I thought I could do my part by becoming sustainability captain and lead our school to a more sustainable future.

I am Elvin, and I wanted to become Sustainability Captain because during my time as a waste warrior I realized that making the world a more sustainable place should be everyone’s top priority.

We would love to do many things for our school as Sustainability Captains. To be able to reach a 5-star sustainability rating would truly be amazing. We would immensely appreciate it if the school could organize a day dedicated to sustainability. We could organize fun events all while learning about human impacts on the world. That concludes this week’s Sustainability blog. Just a friendly reminder for all students to bring Nude Food every day; as we said, the future of our planet lays in our hands.

Water Saving Tips

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Over the last 12 months, we have been raising money to fix out water tanks around the school.

Our Waste Warriors created some incredible tips for saving water at home and around the school.

SUSTAINABILITY CAPTAINS

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Hi! We are Hayley and Sophia the 2023 Sustainability captains.

“I first got interested in Sustainbility at home and i wanted to have a role in helping Wheelers Hill Primary become more sustainabile”. Sophia

“I enjoyed doing some of the Sustainability jobs last year to help out so i thought it would be great to be the captain so i can help out even more”.

At Wheelers Hill Primary we have lots of Sustainable practices. These include

  • Composting

  • Nude Food Tuesday

  • a Five-bin system in each classroom

  • Recycling - hard and soft plastics

  • Paper recycling

  • Indigenous garden

  • Community recycling - batteries, mobile phones, bread tags, markers, light globes, ink cartridges

  • Clothes and electrical bins for community use

  • Water Warriors in each classroom who are responsible for ensuring lighs are off, composting

  • Sustinability leaders in Year 6

  • Recycled benches and tables