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Ringmer's got a bit of a reputation now
for environmental awareness, I think is the best way to describe it.
We're national award winners
of things like the Green Flag for Eco-Schools,
we've won an Ashden Award.
But more importantly than that we've given our kids an insight
into the sort of issues they're going to face in their future.
The problem with oil is, when it's gone, it's gone,
so we have to look for other sources of energy.
Put your hand up if you can name a source of renewable energy.
- Solar energy. - Yeah.
- Water power. - Water, yeah.
- Biomass. - Yeah, biomass.
- Wind power with wind turbines. - Wind power.
What's always disappointed me has been that education seems to be
lagging quite a long way behind what's going on at home.
I'll go into a primary school and see 300 kids
and ask them how many are recycling at home,
probably 90 percent of them will put their hand up.
How much do they do at school? Very little.
This is our wind turbine, which cost £18,000,
which was a grant from the Green Fund.
It does work when it's really windy
and that makes about two and a half kilowatts of energy.
We use it to contribute to the amount of electricity we use every day.
The PV panels on the roof create 7.5 kilowatts of energy per hour.
They're grant-funded.
There is a read-out screen in G07
which has how much we've used in total,
how much it's produced today, this week.
It generates about 10% of our school's energy.
The ground source heat pumps are undoubtedly a great success.
We're just installing a 450-kilowatt biomass boiler.
So, apart from wave power, we've been able to demonstrate to the children
that renewable sources can actually work,
they can actually be used as part of a business
or part of their normal life.
People who are quite passionate about the environment
get to become an environmental prefect or an eco rep,
and there's about 220 eco reps altogether.
(boy) In every classroom is a poster
which is a list of rules made up by students
that you need to follow if you are an eco rep,
which is, like, turn off radios if they're not used, close doors,
turn off lights, tell teachers to turn off their monitors.
Sir, don't forget to turn your board off.
I'll turn the lights off for you.
Since I've become an eco rep, I've definitely thought more about
what I'm doing at home and saving electricity and things like that.
Most people would probably not go as far
as having a wind turbine in their back garden.
The wind turbine has been a very important part of our package.
It's become almost an iconic thing with the kids.
We got them involved in the planning, took them to the parish council
where they spoke to the planning application committee.
They're part of the client deal. That's what we try and establish.
If you look at our biomass boiler,
if we got wood from Scandinavia
and it was brought by lorry and then ship,
it wouldn't be environmentally friendly.
We've written into the contract
that our wood chip comes from within 30 miles.
When I started this project the school bursar was very wary of me.
I think she thought I was gonna spend a lot of money.
Now I'm probably her best friend,
because we've saved considerable amounts of money.
On refuse and recycling we save three or four thousand pounds a year.
On energy reduction we're saving in excess of £12,000 this year.
And our biomass boiler will save around 300 tonnes of carbon a year
and will provide a financial saving
of a quarter of a million pounds in its 20-year life.
We don't have the vandalism or the litter problems we used to have,
because kids are beginning to be aware now
that what they do actually matters.
I'm really proud that the school's given us the opportunity.
I know that we're making a difference for our future.
We're the generation that's going to be living it.
We should be the ones to make a change.
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