Natural World Products (NWP) has joined with St Mary’s College in Derry City to support its Connect With Nature project.
The company has donated all the compost required to enable more than 130 Year 8 pupils to take part in the school’s health and wellbeing initiative.
The project involved each student receiving a plant, a pot and organic high-quality compost to sow their very own flower which they could then take home to watch grow and blossom.
Colm Warren, Chief Executive, NWP, commented:
“As we continue to recycle food and garden waste from across the Northwest, we want to repeat what we are doing elsewhere and give back to the local community to allow people to see the tangible benefits of effective household recycling in their own lives and areas. All we’re doing here is trying to support a fantastic initiative from the staff and pupils at St Mary’s College.
“The compost we donated has been made from discarded household food and garden materials from within Derry City providing teachers with an opportunity to explain to students the importance of recycling while highlighting the connection between climate change and organic compost.
“Donating our product to schools is very important to us as we believe in the power of education to encourage positive recycling habits and the benefits of horticultural therapy from an early age. Quite honestly, we also find that younger people are often some of the most passionate advocates of effective household recycling practices and the fight against the climate emergency and they can have an influence way beyond the level of their own peers.
“We hope we have helped sparked an interest for these year eight students and we look forward to seeing pictures of their flower plots once in full bloom!”
Mrs Paula Molloy, Head of Health and Wellbeing, St Mary’s College said:
“As we continue to observe stringent COVID measures within our College NWP’s compost donation couldn’t have come at a better time!
“Taking the students outside and enabling them to experience the many senses associated with gardening such as the feeling of the soil and the smelling of the plants has meant many have experienced the benefits of connecting with the great outdoors for the first time, and we are sure we’ve unleashed an interest many may not have been aware of!
“We would like to extend our thanks to NWP for their very generous donation and we are looking forward to watching the plants grow in the very near future!”
NWP processes over 200 thousand tonnes of food and garden waste annually collected by local authorities across Northern Ireland including in the Derry City and Strabane District Council area.
This is then converted into high quality organic compost to be used by councils, agri-growers, the horticultural sector and in the community.