Limerick school wins national upcycling competition

A LIMERICK school has won a national upcycling competition.

Bord na Móna Recycling invited entries to enter their Schools Upcycling Competition, an educational challenge designed to provide primary school students with a platform to raise awareness about upcycling.

The Student Council and Green Schools Committee at Gaelscoil Chaladh an Treoigh/Gaelscoil Castletroy used their ingenuity and creativity to upcycle old pallets and create a barrier to help protect the 300 trees in their newly planted small forest around the playground.

Students were encouraged to re-purpose discarded materials into innovative and functional creations, using materials that would typically be considered waste or discarded items.

They decided this would be a great opportunity to come up with a solution to their new problem, that stray footballs from their playground were damaging the branches of their newly planted trees.

To address this, they decided to build a protective fence using old pallets donated by the local community.

The students designed the fence, taking up an entire classroom floor, before constructing and painting it with their unique designs and the school’s name.

This initiative not only solved their problem but also showcased their commitment to sustainability.

The school were first shortlisted to the final 10 of 500 entries before they were chosen as the overall national winner of the competition.

The school won €5,000 and a trip for their pupils as part of the competition.

The judges commented that, “the pupils demonstrated excellent lateral thinking by upcycling materials, rendering them with informative art-work and ultimately, constructing and delivering a durable solution to a real-world problem”.