CHILDREN at Hatherleigh Primary School are delving into the school bins this week in a major effort to reduce waste.

With the help of West Devon Environmental Network's 'Waste Not Want Not Project' children from Year Five are collecting rubbish from all parts of the school from the classrooms to the playground.

After sorting the rubbish, the different types will be weighed and recorded.

Project manager Jane Savage said the object was to help children identify where the waste was being generated and then investigate how it could either be reduced, re-used or recycled.

'What better place to start learning than in school,' she said. 'It's all about waste minimisation — we want to get the message across that if they do not need to use something then don't.

'One of the things children can do is write on both sides of a piece of paper instead of one.'

She said disposing of items was at the bottom of the list: 'Kids have fantastic imaginations and can think of original ways of re-using things. The pupils will be taking the lead rather than them being told what to do.'

Mrs Savage said WestDEN did a similar project in Chagford School last year and it was followed with an assembly by pupils.

'The children really got the message, it was brilliant, and all the results were presented in graph form,' she said.

Hatherleigh School is hoping to apply for Eco-School status in the future and so it was felt appropriate to conduct the 'waste watching' project there.

Headteacher Barbara Shaw said the children were familiar with recycling at home because of the different collection bags and this knowledge was being carried through to school.

'Last year we took part in a poster competition by McVities which was about raising the awareness of recycling,' she said.

'The project with WestDEN fits in with something the year five pupils are doing for their school work but with eco-school status we would be able to build something regular into the curriculum.'