The 1980 year group of the Holy Child Past Students Association (HOPSA) has handed over a recycling project to the school to mark their 40th anniversary after leaving the school.

The project dubbed “SDGs project” is aimed at encouraging the students to adopt more pragmatic measures to reduce plastic waste and promote a sound cycle of resource usage.

In this regard, 90 recycling bins had been supplied and placed at vantage points in the school while a recycling holding site with two huge containers had also been established for the segregation of the waste.

Recycling the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects and is aimed at environmental sustainability by substituting raw material inputs into and redirecting waste outputs out of the economic system.

Additionally, the year group have transformed the school’s book shop which was in a deplorable state by completely renovating it to a modern standard with enough shelves and other facilities.

The two projects which cost over GHC150,000 was made possible solely by the contributions from members of the year group.

The recycling project is being executed in collaboration with Jekora Ventures, an Accra based water management company, which would collect the recyclables and transport them to Accra for recycling.

Explaining the rationale behind the “SDGs Project”, Dr Kim Eva Dickson, President of HOPSA 1980 said the project was born out of their resolve to help their alma mater make a significant difference towards climate change to save the Earth.

She said it was also to give back to the school for all the good values instilled in them while in school.

“We have placed recycle bins at vantage points all over the school so that girls will no longer dump waste but will learn how to separate waste”, she said.

“Recycling is not just putting bins around the school. Recycling is a behaviour change so we collaborated with Jekora Ventures to give teachers and students orientation on what it is to recycle”, she said.

Dr Dickson expressed satisfaction about the progress of the two projects and called on other year groups and old students to take similar initiatives to support their schools adding that government alone could not do it.

“We are actually so pleased with the government that there is free SHS because some girls may not have been able to afford to come to a prestigious school like Holy Child”.

“However, the government cannot do everything. We believe that every year group and past students of every school can do something similar to make a change”, she stated.

She also called on parents to do more to support the school and urged the girls to be change ambassadors in environmental sanitation.

Earlier, the students were given orientation on how to separate waste for recycling and encouraged to extend the message beyond the school to contribute to the climate change agenda.