In Canada, over 1,100 Eco-Schools took part in the 2023 Litter Less Campaign. Almost half a million students from 257 cities conducted community clean-up events, conducted waste audits, and carried out activities related to recycling, reducing waste production, and promoting responsible consumption and production.
Ten of the participating schools have registered for Global Action Days (GAD). However, the majority of schools involved in this year's campaign carried out community actions during the GAD period without registering on the website. here are two example of school stories :
St Monica Elementary school, Montréal : "We did school yard clean up. A schedule was created for each class to go out and collect garbage and recycling from school property and neighbouring Long Term Care facility."
St. Jacinta Marto Catholic Elementary School, Brampton : "We did a week campaign for Litterless Lunches where students could earn ballots for having litterless lunches to be entered into a draw. The ballots were make from G.O.O.S. paper. The winners got to pick from a variety of reusable lunch items (e.g. reusable containers, straws, etc.)."
Schools, encouraged by the Litter Less campaign, organised a multitude of clean-up events in their schools and communities, especially in the spring to remove litter from the environment and demonstrate the power of working together. In total, 953 community clean-ups were carried out by participating schools, involving 240,258 students and 17,630 adults.
During the 2023-24 school year, the Litter Less Campaign helped collect 25,784 kg of garbage as well as 6,797 kg of recycling through community clean-ups. The average diversion rate for participating schools was 40%, meaning that a total of 425,148 kg of compostable and recyclable material has been diverted away from landfill. Schools also noted an optimisation of waste sorting in their classrooms. 87% of schools noted an increase in the number of classrooms showing optimal waste sorting and no contamination in the bins as a result of the campaign.
Participating schools report that 181,863 lunches were waste free, 36,100 more than last year. As a result of this initiative, 89% of schools saw an improvement in the number of waste-free lunches.
A total of 49,097 kg of textiles were saved from going to the landfill through textile/clothing drives, swaps and repair or repurposing campaigns, an increase of 10,394 kg compared to last year.
Through the campaign and the Eco-Schools programme, participating schools had the opportunity to collect 37,290 electronic items for recycling by a qualified organisation. The items collected included batteries, cartridges for printers, computers, cellular phones and any other devices that could not be recovered by the regular collection systems.
Students enhanced their creativity in building paper bins from recyclable materials and had placed them at their classrooms to collect the GOOS (Good On One Side) paper and reuse it for their classroom activities. A total of 15,736 GOOS paper bins were created by students this year, 1,510 more than last year.
In addition to reusing and recycling, students in 251 schools expressed their creativity in creating artwork as a way of repurposing different items such as paper, cardboard, metal, textiles and plastic.