Challenge. Cherish. Inspire.

School Council Challenge our Caterers on Recycling and Sustainability

14th January 2020

School Council

Following a question about the plastic packaging on some of our food (individually packaged blueberry muffins) in a previous School Council meeting, on Friday 10 January, Year 5 and 6 School Council were joined by Hannah Irvine. Hannah helps to look after the sustainability and recycling for our caterers, Holroyd Howe.

The School Council members challenged Hannah with some very good questions including:

Q: What do you do with the leftover food / waste on Fridays?

Hannah: Leftover food which has been out, we call it ‘Customer Facing’, unfortunately cannot be saved or re-used. Therefore, it is collected as food waste by the local collection company and will be converted into fertiliser. Any leftover food which can safely be re-used will be.

Q: What happens to spare food?

Hannah: Unfortunately we cannot pass food on to foodbanks or charities due to safety laws surrounding the transporting of food and keeping it at the correct temperature. For these same reasons, unfortunately food cannot be passed on to farms to feed their animals. The Catering Team monitor and record the amount of food wasted each day in order to help them reduce future waste. Children can help by only taking as much food as they can eat at lunchtime and try their hardest not to throw any food away.

Q: Where does the plastic waste go?

Hannah: All plastic, where possible, is sent to be recycled. The Catering Team and Site Team at The Manor spend a long time ensuring that our recycling and waste, goes into the correct bins ready for collection. Only plastic which is clean can be recycle, contaminated, dirty plastic cannot.

Q: Where do we buy our food from?

Hannah: Where possible, Holroyd Howe like to use local suppliers and champion British meat and free range eggs. Some items, for example fruit that cannot be easily grown in the UK, needs to be purchased from bigger suppliers.

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