The School Environment
Buckswood Ecological Project
At Buckswood, we have always taken our commitment to the environment seriously, embedding ecological awareness at the heart of everything we do. With numerous green initiatives already in place, we are dedicated to reducing our environmental footprint and fostering a culture of sustainability. Our students are taught the importance of environmental stewardship and their personal responsibility to protect the planet. Through hands-on projects, eco-friendly practices, and green education, we empower them to be the change-makers of tomorrow, ensuring that our school community leads by example in the global effort to combat climate change.
Green Thumbs
We have planted 40 Oak trees on campus and an additional 200 across the estate. We have a natural mulch fertilizer system for the flower bed and take care of our gardens as well as admiring them.
Our Solar Energy
At Buckswood our 102 solar panels generate enough energy to power 5552 home for a day! 20% of our hot water is Solar Generated, and this kind of power has no effect on the environment as the panels have no moving parts and do not require additional fuel, other than sunlight to produce power.
Water & Air Filtration
Our new wastewater treatment plant compliments our ‘horizontal flow’ reed beds (that processes the schools organic waste effluent). The treatment plant uses a Submerged Air Filtration (SAF) system containing individual cells on which biomass forms.
Bio-Mass
Our biomass system is 95% efficient and has a range of up to 700 KW split across our three plant-rooms supplying heat to 18 of our school buildings. The system uses renewable, locally, sourced wood pellets, reducing our dependence on imported and non-renewable fossil fuels (for heating) by 100%.
Buckswood Catering Going Green
Here at Buckswood catering we have already gone a long way to become greener, including the following:
We use as much locally produced fresh fruit and vegetables as we possibly can (right now both our apples and pears are from Sussex).
We also get as much of other produce from local suppliers – the 2000+ eggs we get through a week are now all laid in Northiam (10 miles away) and 90% of our meat is locally produced too.
We have replaced all sauce, salt, pepper & sachets with a sauce dispenser and salt mill along with a spice rack for those who require it.
We no longer use plastic bottles of water as all students have their own water bottles and are encouraged to ensure it is full before any trips. Boarders also have their own mugs for hot beverages so no need for takeaway cups.
We have replaced all disposable crockery and cutlery in the boarding houses and use cardboard sandwich packaging for packed meals and only use pasty’s etc in paper packaging.
We have switched our cleaning products to a more ecological option including refillable sanitizer bottles.
We are working with a company called Re-food who now takeaway all of our waste food and turn it into electrical power and fertilizer so less rubbish is sent to landfill.
We have invested in a cardboard bailing compactor to bail our cardboard packaging to send for recycling.
We are also doing all the little things I’m sure you’re all doing too like switching off the lights, turning off the ovens and ventilation when not needed, turning on the toaster 5 minutes before breakfast – and many other small things to get that carbon footprint down.
