Paper4trees – Helping kiwi kids take responsibility for recycling

Port Nelson Ltd has just taken up the Nelson Tasman sponsorship of Paper4trees, a nationwide programme that provides schools and preschools with resources to set up paper and cardboard recycling systems.

Paper4trees programme manager Cayley Manson said participating schools and preschools are given green classroom recycling bins, posters and native plants for the school as an incentive to either start or to increase their recycling rates.

“The more they recycle, the more trees they earn,” she said. “We now have almost 4000 schools taking part around the country and we are thrilled to have Port Nelson on board to help get the project out there in Nelson and Tasman.”

Cayley said the recycling scheme sits well with the school curriculum: “Students learn they need to replenish the resources they use and they learn about recycling and tree planting – last year’s recycling earned schools and preschools over 30,500 native plants to enhance their school grounds.”

Port Nelson Customer Relations and Business Development spokesman Rob Hawkes said the sponsorship was for a two year term and would enable Paper4trees to work more closely with the schools and preschools in Nelson Tasman.

“We are very pleased to help with this project, it fits with our own values as an environmentally responsible port, it’s region wide, it involves education and it will see school grounds improved with the planting of native trees.”

The trees Nelson and Tasman schools earned for their 2011 recycling efforts are being delivered in time for Conservation Week, between September 9 – 14.

Paper4trees was established in 2001, by the Environmental Education for Resource Sustainability Trust (EERST), a not for profit organisation supported by the Ministry for the Environments Waste Levy Fund and local sponsors.

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