Composting at school

Composting was planned for the beginning of the school year but was postponed due to the sanitary conditions that everyone knows about. It was finally possible to start composting on Tuesday 9 March 2021 at the Pierre Barjou school during a complete and attractive animation carried out by Delphine Blanchard from the environment department of the community of communes. This enabled each of the children to be introduced to this technique and to understand how it works and why it is important, the presentation being adapted to each group.

The canteen workers carried out a preliminary evaluation of the waste rejected during the preparation and running of the meals in order to estimate the volume of the composter to be installed. In the end, the volume of the composter was 600 litres, which represents an average of 4 kg of daily waste that is recycled.

The shredding bin and the maturator, which are essential for composting, have been installed on either side of the composter, making the recycling operation easy to implement. Thus, every day, two pupils accompanied by an ATSEM empty the waste collected in adapted buckets into the recycler and add the brown material. Every Wednesday, Mr Cecchin, a municipal employee, checks the temperature and humidity conditions in the recycler so that decomposition is optimal and without risk. If necessary, he aerates the unit and transfers the already decomposed material to the maturator.

This composting operation is part of the eco-responsible approach set up at Lauzun school. It has many ecological and economic advantages, but above all it allows the youngest children to be made aware of simple but essential gestures for a well thought-out waste management. In addition, they will be able to play the role of ambassador to their families in order to develop the recycling of materials, which is essential to reduce the amount of waste collected, which is increasingly costly for the community.