Published Tuesday, 7th January 2025

Since the Surrey Environment Partnership’s Rethink Waste scheme launched, it has awarded £18,500 to 22 Surrey primary schools, including three from Reigate & Banstead.

These donations are chosen by Surrey residents who’ve signed up to the scheme and now, with a further £3,000 on offer, you too can give a gift to local kids by signing up and taking part.

The scheme works like this. You sign up to Rethink Waste and complete fun, easy online activities that help you reduce waste, for which you win points. You select one of the participating schools and donate your points to them – there are six Reigate & Banstead schools taking part. At the end of each month between January and March 2025, the two Surrey schools with the most points will take home a share of £1,000 that they’ll use to fund an environmental project.

So far, nearly 11,000 households across the county have signed up to take part in Rethink Waste. They’ve completed over 165,000 activities and are well on their way to reducing the amount of waste produced in Surrey – a result for the planet and for local councils as they will save money on disposal costs.

And residents have chosen some great projects to get behind too. Money from Rethink Waste has funded projects ranging from creating brand new outdoor classrooms to buying litter picking sets, building new guinea pig homes and building raised beds.

Cllr Hannah Avery, Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services says: “This is a great way for local people to boost their recycling know-how and support the borough’s schools. So far, three Reigate & Banstead schools have benefitted from the scheme with a total of £3,500 going towards their fantastic environmental projects. If you’re not one of the more than 1,100 local households already signed up to Rethink Waste, now is a great time to get involved and get donating.”

If you want to take part, sign up to Rethink Waste now.

The schools in Reigate & Banstead taking part and the projects they’ll fund should they win are:

  • Earlswood Infant and Nursery School, Redhill – create a sensory garden
  • Earlswood Junior School, Redhill – rejuvenate the school’s quiet area
  • Meath Green Infant School, Horley – develop food recycling and set up a community milk fridge
  • St Anne’s Catholic Primary School, Chertsey – buy litter pickers
  • Walton-on-the-Hill Primary School, Tadworth – create class gardens for every year group
  • Warren Mead Junior School, Banstead - enhance the school's wildlife pond.

[Updated 9 January with additional primary school taking part]