Pollution solutions bring everyone together

“Even a small voice has a big impact”

– Student from Oaklands Secondary School

It’s Plastic Free July – the global campaign raising awareness about pollution solutions around our plastic use. There is simply too much plastic being produced and disposed of in the world. However, the use of plastics can be essential for Disabled people to live independently, and many plastic-free alternatives do not work for everyone, so it’s essential that a plastic-free July and future ensures that nobody is left behind.

Pollution solutions bring everyone together

This year, we’ve been bringing primary, secondary and university students together in The Recycling Lab, a creative learning programme where students across ages have worked together to create solutions that increase recycling efforts in their community.

The project responded to the low recycling rates in the Tower Hamlets borough, which has become a key priority for local council initiatives. We found that most students had an excellent understanding of the waste and recycling issues in their local area, and understood that personal choices matter. However, more than half of students involved felt they had little to no power to make a real difference.

Through creative workshops, year 10 and year 12 students explored the barriers to recycling in the area and imagined structural and actionable solutions that would support their local community. They then visited UCL’s Computer Science department, where university staff and students introduced emerging technologies, helping to transform their ideas into computer games through AI-supported techniques such as vibe coding.

Once back in their schools, students prepared assemblies to share their games with six local primary schools, where primary students learned about the issues, and offered valuable feedback on how impactful each of the games would be in supporting the wider community.

Students ended the year with a shift in their sense of agency, and greater awareness of how different university subjects can play a role in responding to real-world issues that they identified, particularly connecting sciences and environmental issues.

Our latest resource

Our new School Waste Management Toolkit has been developed from these sessions and is packed full of activities for students and teachers to explore what is currently happening in their school, identify changes that could make a difference, and create a clear plan for action.