HERRISLEA HOUSE HOTEL PARTNERS WITH LOCAL SCHOOL ON ECO SCHOOLS INITIATIVE Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Herrislea House Hotel and Hamnavoe Primary School have joined forces to help the school achieve its third flag in the Eco Schools Initiative.
The hotel is already involved in recycling activity and has won a Green Tourism Business Scheme Gold award from VisitScotland, and so the school wanted to use the establishment as a best practice example, demonstrating to its pupils how the Eco Schools Initiative can be applied to a commercial enterprise.
Michael Hannah, headmaster of Hamnavoe Primary School, commented: “The Eco Schools Initiative promotes environmental awareness in schools through a variety of activities. It is viewed by the Scottish Executive as a performance indicator and we believe it is a very useful tool for changing the mindsets of pupils and exploring how to deal with environmental issues.
“The Initiative has become a key part of the way we plan our curriculum. We have already achieved two green flags and, with another two to obtain, we wanted to take our pupils to Herrislea House Hotel to illustrate how recycling and environmental awareness can be applied to a business operation.
“We had already been involved in some recycling at school and we hoped that our visit to the hotel would inspire the pupils and encourage them to develop new ideas which would bring us towards achieving our next flag – it certainly has been an enormous help.
“Herrislea House Hotel is an excellent example of a recycling project and has shown the schoolchildren that recycling is something that some people in the wider community have a real interest in and drive to undertake.
“As a result of our visit, we are now exploring a short term project with the hotel where we will help to recycle shampoo and conditioner bottles by refilling them. This will give the children the opportunity to get involved on a practical level and make the whole Eco Schools Initiative much more meaningful to them.”
Marjorie Williamson, proprietor of Herrislea House Hotel, said: “We are delighted to be involved in this project. Recycling is a very important part of what we do and if we can help in some small way to inform schoolchildren of its importance then, not only are we are putting something valuable back into the community, but we are also working towards a sustainable environment for future generations.”
