STUDENTS IMPRESS McDONALD’S WITH RECYCLING IDEAS
Students from eight Doncaster schools went head to head in the McDonald’s Technology Challenge this week as they went all out to impress a panel of judges with their ideas for a restaurant waste recycling system.
The Technology Challenge, organised by Business & Education South Yorkshire (B&E-SY), involved over 100 primary and secondary students who were challenged by McDonald’s
to develop a system to encourage recycling of customer waste from their restaurants. The teams had to work together to come up with an idea which would persuade people not to drop litter outside and which would assist both customers and McDonald’s staff to separate waste so it could be recycled.
The Years 6 and 7 students, who have been working hard on their designs for the past six weeks, came together for the final at McAuley Lower School in Doncaster, where judges from McDonald’s and the local business community assessed the practicality, creativity, impact and effectiveness of the prototypes.
Mary Milburn from B&E-SY said: “The purpose of this Technology Challenge is to stimulate students to think about environmental issues and to use their design skills in an innovative and creative way. The success of the project is down to the companies who set the challenges as they work closely with the schools during the project so I would like to thank McDonald’s for their input as it has enabled the students to gain a real insight into the food industry, in particular highlighting the important environmental issues surrounding recycling and waste reduction.”
The winning team, Green Peace Girls from St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Rossington was made up of students Enya Samways, Bronagh Gunn, Alex Charlesworth, Stephanie Gillespie and Anneka Needham who designed a waste recycling bin which was colour coded so people could easily understand how to separate their rubbish.
Green Peace Girls team member, Year 6 student Bronagh Gunn said: “The challenge has been really exciting and we were so happy when we won! It has been difficult because our first few designs didn’t work so we had to keep trying different ideas until it did work. It is important for McDonald’s to look at recycling because it isn’t pleasant to see litter in the streets and it’s better for the environment to recycle waste.”
The judging panel was made up of Yvonne Brookes, marketing coordinator for McDonald’s, Ian Heath, McDonald’s Doncaster Dome Business Manager, Maggie Count, 14-19 Employer Liaison DMBC, Paul Nevin, Social Enterprise Adviser, Business Link Yorkshire, Vic Holbrey, Head of Project Management, Doncaster Chamber and Neil Kelley, Lecturer at Doncaster College.
Ideas from the Challenge will be fed back to the McDonald’s development group, who look at ways of turning ideas into something practical and real.
Ian Heath, McDonald’s Doncaster Dome business manager said: “We are delighted to be involved in this challenge as it is important to look at these environmental issues within both schools and businesses. McDonald’s have a lot of recycling initiatives but we also need to find ways of encouraging customers and staff to do the same. I have been really impressed with all the ideas I have seen here today and hopefully we may see some of them incorporated into McDonald’s restaurants in the future.”
Vic Holbrey, Head of Project Management at Doncaster Chamber said: “It is always difficult to judge at the Technology Challenges because the standard of work is so high. This is probably the hardest challenge I have judged as all the groups have come up with completely different ideas but the winning team, Green Peace Girls, really impressed the judging panel with their colour coded waste recycling system as it was different, innovative and we could see they had put a lot of thought into it.”
The schools taking part in the challenge included The
McAuley Catholic High School, Cantley, Holy Family RC Primary School, Stainforth, St Joseph & St Teresa Primary School, Woodlands, St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School, Harworth, St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Rossington, St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Retford, St Peter’s Catholic Primary School, Doncaster and Our Lady of Mount Carmel RC Primary School, Intake.
This year is the ninth year of the Technology Challenge and is the largest to date, involving 27 businesses, over 100 Doncaster schools and 3,500 pupils aged between 10 and 16 years.<span styl
