Cups up for the environment

WITH an excess of takeaway coffee cups at their disposal, Camp Hill Primary School pupils started growing ideas to reuse them.

During an online school lesson in the second lockdown last year, art teacher Sandy McLennan said a couple of her students had the bright thought to utilise disposable coffee cups to grow succulents, herbs and other small plants.

“Two of the children who were in the class, Terry and Ellie, showed us all a bunch of plants in recycled cups they had collected and had planted in,” she said.

“I said that I had also been saving coffee cups at that time because we couldn’t use keep cups at that time and asked them if they wanted to help me set up a project called Grow Cups while we were in lockdown.

“The kids and their parents were really supportive, so with the help of my daughter who does media and PR, we set up a Facebook and Instagram page and opened it up to the community, we thought it would be fantastic to involve the wider Bendigo region.”

While the project was originally planned to be short lived, due to the high rates of students and community members participating Ms McLennan said it’s set to continue well into this year.

“We actually ended up making a stall at the Farmers Market late last year and we ended up selling over 1000 grow ups,” she said.

“We had parents, community members, another school – Spring Gulley – involved to raise around $550 which the Camp Hill kids

decided to donate to The Ocean Cleanup North Pacific Foundation who clean up plastic waste in the oceans.

“Since then, the rest of the grow cups are at school being watered and looked after and we have decided, although the project was supposed to be short term, to continue it.”

While participation is a huge driver for the project, Ms McLennan said it’s also about providing people a way to give back to the environment and feel like they’re making a difference.

“We’re trying to say reduce, reuse and recycle, we’re not encouraging people to use takeaway cups but if you have to, at least this is giving them another life,” she said.

“With the compostable cups, if you cup slits in the side and the bottom, you can actually just plant it straight into the garden when you need to which is great.

“In lockdown it helped me personally, in the second lockdown everyone was starting to feel a bit isolated and it was hard to keep going at times, so it was great to be involved with something so positive.”

With another market stall in discussions, to get involved, keep updated or to learn more about the project, visit bit.ly/2MsU58T.