Children from Wirral-based St Michael and All Angels Catholic School have collected and transformed 25,000 plastic bottle tops into stunning art murals, as part of a nationwide recycling campaign to raise awareness about the dangerous impact of plastic waste on the environment.
The primary school has been named among the top ten finalist schools in the Message in a Bottle Top art competition, for its gigantic ocean scene mural, featuring a life sized turtle, titled “Be the Solution, Not the Pollution”
St Michael and All Angels Catholic Primary School will now enter into an online exhibition alongside nine other finalists, where friends and family can support and comment on their favourite submissions before the winning school and two runners up are announced on 18th July 2022.
The winning school will receive a playground makeover worth £5,000 and the runners up will be presented with tablets worth over £100.
Mrs Ralph, Head Teacher at the school said: “This project inspired the whole school community and united everyone in a common cause and goal. Working together to make a difference has benefited the children enormously in so many ways. They gained huge amounts of knowledge but most importantly it has made a difference to their own ‘eco warrior’ efforts in school and at home.“
Mrs Young added: “This was a really fantastic project for our school to become involved in. The children were incredibly passionate about raising awareness of problems in the environment, particularly ones that will affect their futures. It was amazing to see them coming together to create something meaningful yet beautiful.”
The Message in a Bottle Top campaign, led by sustainable composite decking brand Composite Prime® in collaboration with the National Schools Partnership, is now in its second year and has been built in line with the national curriculum, providing more than 1,300 teachers and approximately 173,460 pupils aged 5 to 12 years with learning resources across art, maths science and citizenship.
Overall, 1,239 schools from across the UK have taken part in Composite Prime’s Message in a Bottle Top campaign, which has seen almost 500,000 bottle tops recycled into beautiful art sculptures of endangered wildlife. Educational resources have been accessed by schools across the country almost 5,000 times and competition entries have increased by 93% in 2022.
Composite Prime® Director, Charles Taylor added: “We’re absolutely delighted with the level of interest in our Message in a Bottle campaign, which has grown exponentially in year two. The standard of entries has been incredible and it’s been so difficult to select a top ten.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to know that thousands of pupils across the country have engaged with the educational resources we’ve created to raise awareness about such a serious and consequential issue. We’ve absolutely loved reviewing all the stunning entries and every school that entered should be so proud of their hard work and dedication to the project. We’re very excited to award the winning school with their well deserved playground makeover later in the year. Good luck St Michael and All Angels Catholic Primary School!
Composite Prime® creates eco-friendly and socially responsible decking and cladding products, made using recycled plastic and FSC® certified oak wood flour. The company is dedicated to producing sustainable materials. Each square metre of composite decking contains the equivalent of more than 3,000 plastic bottle caps or 280 plastic bottles. In the seven years of operation the brand has saved the equivalent of 176 million plastic milk bottles from landfill and over 1.8 billion bottle top caps.
To find out more about Composite Prime’s Message in a Bottle Top recycling programme and see the full list of finalists and show support for your favourite, visit https://www.composite-prime.com/message-in-a-bottle-top/.
