At Ingla we believe in being more than just a school where people go to improve their English. This isn’t just a place to learn about grammar and vocabulary, or to practise sounding more fluent when you speak. Ingla is also a community, and we encourage Inglans to show community spirit and be a part of the world around them. With this in mind, Ingla has been joining the community in North London in becoming eco-friendlier and greener. The environment and the future of our planet is important to Inglans, and we think it should be important to you too. Here’s a look inside our school at some things we’ve done recently to make the green in Ingla’s logo a little bit greener.

Switching from plastic cups to paper

Plastic is one of the biggest environmental problems facing the world today. Around the world 73% of the rubbish on beaches is plastic, plastic kills more than 1 million seabirds and animals every year, and it has even entered people’s food supply. While this material is very convenient and easy to use, it also never biodegrades, so plastic that is thrown in the rubbish will be around for 1,000 years. Even worse, plastic is made from oil, on of the most polluting industries on earth. At Ingla, we don’t use much plastic to begin with, but we’re taking steps to remove it from our school completely. One step we’ve taken is to stop buying plastic cups for Inglans to drink water and replace them with biodegradable paper cups (cups that will dissolve and return to nature in a short time). This means that when an Inglan needs a drink of water at school, they won’t have to worry that the cup they drink from is going to pollute the earth for years to come.

Buying lightweight, recycled printer paper

One thing that is absolutely necessary for a school, unlike plastic, is paper. Inglans needs copies for class material, to do grammar exercises for homework, and to write essays for their exams. This is where Ingla’s green project can have the biggest effect. We have now switched from our normal printer paper to lightweight paper that is made from recycled fibres. It is also made from materials that come from FSC forests, these are regulations that help protect trees and make sure they are re-planted responsibly.

Getting Eco-friendly toilet paper

At Ingla, it’s not just the paper in the printers that’s eco-friendly now, but our toilet roll is also green. Ingla has switched toilet paper suppliers, and we now get all our loo roll from Who Gives a Crap, a company whose product is made from 100% recycled materials and uses no trees at all. In addition, Who Gives a Crap also donates half of their profits to help people around the world have access to clean water and toilets to improve sanitation and hygiene.

Eco-friendly board markers for our teachers

Ingla has also switched the board markers that our teachers use. Now all our teachers have BIC Velleda Ecolutions pens. They last longer, which means we’re reducing the amount of waste we create. Less rubbish is good for the earth.

Recycling at Ingla

One of the biggest steps anyone can take to protect the environment is to make less rubbish and recycle. At Ingla, we have had a training session for our teachers to explain what can and can’t be recycled in Haringey. Now everyone has a clear idea about how to recycle effectively. We’ve also made a poster for our bins so that Inglans can join in the effort too. This poster clearly shows Inglans what to put in the recycling bin and what to put in the rubbish bin. We can already see the results, as the amount of recycling at Ingla has gone up significantly.

Green Future

These are just some steps we’ve taken so far, but Ingla’s project to become a greener, eco-friendlier place isn’t going to stop here. In the future we plan to switch our water supplier so that, instead of using big plastic jugs of water, Inglans are going to be able to get fresh, clean water filtered directly from the tap. This means less plastic being produced, which means less energy being used, and less waste being thrown into the environment. Finally, Ingla is also researching changing our energy provider to find a greener alternative, because we know that energy produced from fossil fuels is dirtier than renewable energy.

Ingla is going green, so join us in making Haringey, London, and the world a cleaner place to live!

Icons made by Monkik from www.flaticon.com; Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels