Plogging and World Clean Up Day

World Cleanup Day and ‘Plogging’ – A new trend at Dominic College

To recognise World Cleanup Day on 15 September at Dominic College, our Kinder-Year 6 Student Represented Council (SRC) wanted to combine a clean-up event with our daily fitness program.

Some students had seen the trend of ‘plogging’ online (picking up rubbish whilst jogging) and they thought this would be a wonderful event to hold at Dominic College. To make the plogging event more interesting, the SRC decided to create a competition among our Houses to see which could collect the most rubbish whilst plogging. Our College Houses are Savio, Bosco, Guzman and Siena.

The event unfolded around our ovals on Friday 14 September where after recess, students wore gloves and brought along tongs to collect rubbish whilst they walked and jogged around our College. Wheelie bins were placed at the start area with the house flags. Students raced around picking up rubbish and placing it in their house bins. Within 15 minutes the wheelie bins were almost full and our environment was sparkling.

Our grounds are expansive and students were really active cleaning areas where rubbish often goes unnoticed. At the end of the event, students gathered to see which house had collected the most rubbish. Siena House (Red) were winners by a very small margin.

Our students thoroughly enjoyed the activity. They saw the benefit to both the environment and their own health. Our SRC students are planning to host this event regularly throughout Term 4 and the House Spirit promoted was wonderful. The word ‘plogging’ is now being regularly used by our students.

In addition to this activity, throughout the day classes found areas around the College that needed cleaning. Of particular note, our Year 5 students spent the afternoon preparing their garden beds for planting vegetables and herbs. Our Year 4 students trialled their new compost bin in their classroom and our youngest students at the College, Kinders, have been busily cleaning their favourite spots around the College.

A focus within classrooms was investigating small changes students can make that will have a positive impact on the environment. .

Throughout Term 4, our SRC will be very excited to conduct our waste audit, create an environment group and begin the campaign to reduce waste here at Dominic College, reuse the recyclable materials and use compostable waste.