According to East Bentleigh Primary School’s Sustainability policy under Water, we aim to minimise the consumption of mains water at the school through the improvement of plumbing systems and conservation programs.
To implement this aim we wanted to:
- To involve the whole school community in the planning of water conservation initiatives.
- To use resources and equipment as efficiently as possible.
- To choose the most effective means of conserving water eg. Water tanks for flushing toilets.
We have three huge water tanks, two situated in our infant playgrounds which were installed in 2008, and one outside our new ‘Learning Neighbourhood”. The main purpose of the original two water tanks was to maintain our beautiful gardens during all those years of drought and to flush our toilets. Our data on SETS for water had not decreased significantly as expected.
Our garden teacher discovered earlier this year – 2012 – that the pump to the water tank was broken. One of our parents fixed the pump but the pump size wwas too small and too far away from the toilets to make much of a difference. We decided to get a larger pump so that all our tank water is used efficiently. We are anticipating a difference in our next water bill.
All our toilets have duel flushers and we have placed water containers unter our drinking taps so we can best utilise any water wasting.
Our next focus at East Bentleigh will be to implement the South East Water initative – Water – Learn it! Live it! into our curriculum. This program provides teachers with resources to develop fun and interesting ways to integrate water conservation into their teachings.
