A YORK primary school is doing its bit to help the environment by collecting items that are typically hard to recycle.

Poppleton Road Primary School's pupils and staff are bringing in their crisp packets, biscuit and cracker wrappers and oral care products to be sent to recycling programmes run by TerraCycle.

The school is also collecting writing implements, including biros, felt tip pens, highlighters and whiteboard pens, to take to St Nick’s Environment Centre, which will then send them to be recycled.

In addition, it is collecting all plastic bottle lids with the aim of creating a large piece of art.

A GALLERY OF 37 OLD PHOTOS FROM POPPLETON ROAD SCHOOL

Any lids not used will be sent to Lush, who are running a recycling scheme whereby they use the lids to make their black tubs for their body and cosmetic products.

The school has become a community drop off point for all of the above items. It means any member of the public can bring these items in and put them in the new recycling scheme drawers at the school's entrance during its opening hours - Monday to Friday, 7am to 6pm.

Lauren Iveson, a Year 2 teacher at Poppleton Road Primary, who has started up the recycling schemes for the school, said: "Recycling has always been carried out at Poppleton Road Primary School for items such as paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and aluminium cans. In 2018 there was a lot of media coverage on the devastating impacts of the plastic waste we are creating and we knew that we wanted to do everything we could to make our children and families aware of their plastic consumption and how we can reduce that. When I heard about TerraCycle and the schemes they are running I knew that it would be a simple system to set up at school and that our families would be very supportive. Terracycle recycle a large range of items but we decided to start with a few schemes that consisted of recycling items that every household uses. Our children and families have been absolutely fantastic with the support they have given us. We have just sent off our first couple of large boxes full of oral care products and crisp packets and new boxes are already filling up."