The Wandin Yallock Primary School has snatched a top prize at the 2025 ResourceSmart awards.
The small Yarra Ranges public school won the Container Deposit Scheme Vic (CDS Vic) Excellence Award off the back of The Enviro Squad, a team of staff and student leaders paving the way towards the school’s 2025 sustainability goals.
The school received $1000 in prize money, an eco-friendly plaque made from recycled materials and certificates of honour.
But one Enviro Squad student said the work they’d done wouldn’t be possible without a collective contribution from the school and the wider community.
“It wasn’t just up to us but it was up to our school and if they took it seriously or not.”
“They took it pretty seriously and they bought their cans and all of that and it was pretty exciting,” the student said.
The Container Deposit Scheme Vic (CDS Vic) enables people to earn money from recycling drink containers at refunds points across the state. The Enviro Squad would go out on their breaks as “waste warriors”, collecting recyclables and then later returning them to the refund points to raise money.
The ResourceSmart Schools program provides practical support to schools to encourage sustainable practices, and its ResourceSmart Schools Awards pits other schools together to reward the schools leading the way.
But, there was no tension between competitors at the awards ceremony which took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 5 June, as the schools were all supportive and encouraging of each other.
“Going up and saying how hard we worked and seeing others and how hard they worked – that was my highlight,” one student said.
This year’s theme for the awards was ‘Working Together’, which was fitting for Wandin Yallock as teamwork and collaboration gave them the edge to win.
Wandin Yallock Primary School garden specialist and sustainability leader Jillian Dowling, affectionately known as Farmer Jill, said the school and community were instrumental in helping recycling efforts.
“We’ve had bags delivered to the office full of cans, the Warratina Lavender Farm occasionally will bring over what they’ve collected from their shop, and also extended families, so not just parents but we’ve had grandparents also deliver things for us to count and return.”
“So it’s been more than just the students’ involvement, it’s spread out to the world,” Ms Dowling said.
For the students, the highlight of their sustainability efforts leading up to the award was working as a team with other students and community.
It showcased the students’ values of community and caring for the environment, mirrored by the role model teaching staff at the school.
“My highlight was probably all of us were making teamwork and especially how we went out to the reverse vending machine. We all worked as a team there and that was one of my favorite parts,” one student said.
Ms Dowling recalled a moment where they went on an excursion to one of the local reverse vending machines.
“We went out there and then you’re almost competing because there’s only two deposit holes and one wasn’t working properly. I think that the left side you put nine in and the right side got 64.”
The trip didn’t just show the students where the recycling was deposited, it also was a learning opportunity about the system of recycling and how it works.
It was a time for learning all these different things, even about the system, and talking then about, ‘why would people deposit it? If it’s not working properly, how can they make it better? Is this gonna work for us’, “ Ms Dowling said.
“That’s when we went on this community member to return most of them because it just wasn’t possible for us to do the numbers we were getting.”
The students said they weren’t just motivated by keeping the environment clean but also helping the community.
“I think it’s not just about helping the environment, it’s also about helping the community,” one student said.
“I also like how we were stopping from the cans and all of the cartons and all of that from getting to the ocean and it’s hurtful to see all those animals in the ocean being stuck in the plastics and stuff,” another student said.
The school earned $500 from VICReturn for water tanks and raised over $400 from container collections, showing their sustainability practices are financially – you guessed it – sustainable.
One purchase the Enviro Squad team had made with the funds they’d earned was the plush sea turtle Mascot, fittingly dubbed Eco by the students.
The staff at Wandin Yallock Primary School are all incredibly supportive of the students.
Teachers encouraged students to be ‘waste warriors’ during recess and to always strive to keep the environment clean.
But they also validated the student’s ideas when it comes to sustainable solutions, which promotes healthy leadership while curating a comfortable environment for peers to share ideas.
“It’s their voice and we’re quite proud of our student voice, so they talk about what’s important to them or what they think will really work in our school environment.”
“So they get to choose and then they act on it and we just sort of support them doing that,” Ms Dowling said.
Sustainability Victoria director of regions and community action Katie Pahlow said collaboration is crucial
“We can achieve so much more when we work together, whether that’s with other students, other schools, other teachers, or the wider community beyond the school gate. By working together, our efforts combine to build the future we need.”
The number of students involved in the Enviro Squad has increased from five last year, to nine, and they’re already paving the path for more sustainable practices, with a plan to invest the prize money to build a water tank for the school.
