​Beeston pupils tackle global litter louts with poster design

Luke Tabiner

Lane End Primary School

Children in inner-city south Leeds want to inspire other across the globe to create a litter free world.

At the request of pupils, Lane End Primary School in Beeston held a poster competition to raise awareness about litter, and what everyone can do to play their part to tackle it.

They are now looking to see if they can get their designs displayed in every country of the world, by the end of the school year – in late July.

The winning posters, as judged by the school council, are uploaded online.

And youngsters are now appealing to people across their community, their city, and beyond – to help them spread the word, and see people in every one of the UN’s 195 countries of the world – plus dependencies and other nations like Taiwan and Greenland - print and display one of their posters, and send a photo

back.

They hope participants across the globe will also undertake litter picking wherever they are,

and help spread the message of creating a litter-free world.

The school aim to tick countries off the list over the course of this school term – and to finish by the end of term on July 21.

Comments from some of the youngsters who participated included: “We should not drop rubbish,

we need to put it in the bin” (Ibrahim, Age 7), “I don’t like seeing litter on the floor, it’s bad for our

world” (Ayda, Age 6), and “We need to care and respect our planet” (Riya, Age 10).

Cllr Ed Carlisle (Green Party, Hunslet and Riverside) has been working with the school on the

project, and commented: “I love the way in which youngsters are just far bolder and imaginative

than adults! When one of the kids said they wanted to go global, we didn’t initially take it seriously;

but actually, this is a perfect example of how we can use the digital world to connect with others

worldwide, and make much more impact. Please help them reach their goal if you can – especially

with the less well-known countries!”

Luke Tabiner (Deputy Headteacher at Lane End) said “We are really proud of our pupils at Lane

End and their attitude and determination to improve their local communities and beyond. One of our

school values is to ‘aspire’ and what better way of bringing this to life then aspiring others to make a

positive change on a global scale! We want to show all our pupils that we can all make a positive

difference in some way no matter how small it might appear, such as picking up litter and making

our streets cleaner and greener.”

Full details and uploads for the Lane End World Litter Challenge are at:

www.facebook.com/worldlitterchallenge.

Interviews and press-calls are available by request (see contact details, below).