Guinness World Record Holder attends start of Recycling Week

Pupils and teachers at St Clement Danes School had a special guest visitor to their assembly on Monday 23rd September 2019 to launch the start of recycling week.

Chris Bertish, a Guinness World Recorder holder for being the first person to cross the Atlantic on a paddle board, and also co-author of a new curriculum which has just been endorsed by United Nations surrounding the Sustainable Development Goals, visited our school to attend a presentation by HCL (Hertfordshire Catering Ltd). HCL were joined by their ecological cleaning product supplier, Delphis Eco, to initiate a discussion about how plastic is recycled in the UK.

Delphis Eco brought their giant inflatable Eco-Turtle blimp to the school field, which had its debut at the protests in London last week. They are the first company to have created bottles for cleaning products that are made from 100% recycled plastic and are 100% recyclable. Members of the Student Union Environment Group saw the blimp and got presented with the first 100% recycled reusable water bottles. They heard about the aim of Delphis, which is to encourage us to move from recycling 9% of plastic to 90%!

A hundred and twenty Year 8 students attending the special assembly heard Mark Jankovich, an environmental philanthropist from Delphis Eco say: “There is more microplastic in the ocean than stars believed to be in the galaxy! Eight million tons of plastic, which equates to a dump truck a minute, ends up in our oceans each year and has a material impact on climate change.”

The turtle was named the Tim the Turtle by our students, which he will be called at all future eco events at school!