Recycling brainchild, Gerringong science teacher Sue Hassler, could not be more proud of the school children, who have thrown their support behind eco-friendly initiatives.

“We have saved tonnes and tonnes,” Mrs Hassler said.

“The kids are fantastic, I showed them a documentary and they weren’t just interested, they were passionate about recycling.”

On a trip to Gerringong Harbour about a year ago, kids returned to school with bags full of rubbish that could be recycled.

“They refused to put it in the red bins, they were saying, ‘who can we write to, we need recycling bins there,’” Mrs Hassler said.

“It brought a tear to my eye.”

Thanks to advocacy by Mrs Hassler, the kids and community members, Kiama Council implemented recycling bins at the harbour about six months ago.

Back at school, they have adopted a Terracycle system, with bins just for chip packets.

“We get a small amount of money back for that, and it all gets recycled,” Mrs Hassler said.

“We talked about plastics; their break-down periods, where they come from and why they are a problem.

“Then we looked at their lunchboxes and how we could minimise plastics in them. We saw a huge change in lunchboxes and there is now a lot less clingwrap, for example, coming into the school.

“In science we made beeswax wraps out of cotton and beeswax to be used instead of cling wrap. It gives them an alternative instead of just telling them, ‘don't bring cling wrap to school.’”

Mrs Hassler has been contacted by parents from Minnamurra Public School and Kiama High, eager to follow suit and reduce their waste.

Kiama High just purchased $12,000 worth of recycling bins.

The high school will be featured on the ABC’s War on Waste series.

“As a community we have to make changes to the way we’re consuming and disposing things,” Mrs Hassler said.

You would be forgiven for thinking all schools in NSW are this eco-friendly.

The NSW Education Minister has assured Mrs Hassler all schools are provided with funding for paper and co-mingled recycling facilities within their budget.

But the funds are simply not being channeled into recycling in all schools.

“You would think all schools would put in a bin system similar to what we have in our homes, but it’s simply not happening,” she said.

“There are some exceptions, and there are paper recycling bins in a lot of primary school classrooms but that’s it.”