Meet Niamh

Meet Niamh. She is a local A Level student about to go into her final year of college. I’ve known her for quite a while, I used to work in the village where she lives. So when I found out about her EPQ and its subject, I had to get in contact and ask her a few questions!

Tell me, what is an EPQ?

“It stands for Extended Project Qualification, you get an A Level out of being creative. You can get a grade from doing a brain fart of a question and researching that. You can do an essay, you can do an art project. The whole is point is to document your whole journey from beginning to end.”

There is a smaller version available at GCSE called PQ, culminating in a 5,000 word essay. The EPQ essay is 7,000, unless you are submitting an art project, like Niamh. She will still be documenting the journey, which is where most of the grade comes from.

So it’s almost like a dissertation: research and independent study culminating in either a physical project or an essay. So what is yours about?

“I haven’t really got a question. Yet. Like I say, it’s all about the journey. I want to focus it on plastic use, because obviously it’s a massive thing in the media and just in my life right now. And specifically, I think Grove College or Grove School. I’ve done a couple surveys already and I’m thinking of doing some social experiment type of things. It’s all kind of things which need permission.”

What surveys have you already done?

“My main one has just been a variety one, kind of like preliminary research. I sent it to every student and it was like how many bottles do you use, how much plastic do you think you use, do you throw away or recycle it. It’s completely anonymous so they could feel free to be as honest as they want, or lie as much as they want, that’s the kind of the issue with it. That was the main subject, I kind of tailed off at the end as I want to end in an art project. So just various inspirations I found off my mood board, what do you prefer, which do you think has the most impact.”

What inspired you to do it about plastic waste, specifically?

“Me? I’ve grown up around the conservation side of life and with everything in the media and stuff, with all the plastic islands coming up and things like that. It’s just a massive thing that’s very present in everyone’s lives, not just mine. And I’m making my life changes by genuinely want to make a difference. What can I do within my school to make a difference and then hopefully it’ll grow from that.”

Why do you think it’s important to raise this awareness about plastic waste?

“Because it’s a pain in the arse.” (Ever her father’s daughter.) “There’s no good to it. I mean it’s convenient and it was convenient at the point of invention. And I see how it’s grown massively and how it’s helped everyone grow massively. But at this point, there’s so many alternatives we can use, and don’t, because of convenience and cost, I suppose. I feel like there are so many better options we can use for the environment, and we just don’t. We are bit of an ignorant society right now.”

I told some customers how many straws they get through a month and they seemed genuinely surprised that it was around the 60 mark.

“Literally could kill 60 turtles. We don’t have that many to spare.”

Tell me a little bit more about your project. What are you aiming to create with your sculpture?

“My sculpture, obviously a little bit of a secret. I’m taking inspiration from a lot of things that already exist. For example there is a wave sculpture made of plastic bottles all from Shropshire in London. The difference with all the stuff I’m trying to research is there’s no recorded impact. So I started with originally the survey, it was multiple choice of these things I’m taking inspiration from and the question was which one makes the most impact. I’ve had a lot of people come to me saying that it was a really interesting survey, which is really nice, and stuff like it’s a really gorgeous sculpture but you couldn’t tell it’s made of plastic and didn’t have much impact. So it’s things like that and comments like that which are impacting the final look.

“I want to do something arty and I want to make a difference. How do I know I’m going to make a difference without recording the impact? It’s a really difficult thing to get around because it’s all subjective.”

Did you see the one Greenpeace put up in Italy, the other day? The one of the two whales coming out of the water.

“Yes, I’d heard about it. There’s one in Brazil that’s these two fish and it’s just massive and it’s just all the same plastic bottle that they found on the one beach. It’s just mad. And for me it had a massive impact, and that’s why I want to add my bit. I feel like as much as it is useful for people like me, not everyone is like me. Most people don’t already have the environmental impact of straws in their brain, so why would they have the environmental impact when they’re just going for a stroll and suddenly see a nice sculpture? It’s hard.”

You’ve said you’ve collected a few bottles so far, has the amount surprised you at all?

“Massively.”

Was it more than you expected?

“Yeah. And I already went in with that mindset. I was on the Ambassador programme last year, and my friend was on a separate Ambassador group but we both had the same mindset. We were both wanting the same goal, but coming from different angles of it. No one else wanted this goal, so we’ll just take charge.

“So in college, we put up separate bags and bins for people’s plastic bottles next to recycling bins and normal bins with a sign prompting people to put it in there, which we couldn’t control completely. We tried. We’ve still got them stored. In a week, we got four of the big bin bags full of the plastic bottles. Considering that the college is around a 200 person college, that’s staff and students, that is ridiculous.

“That’s from the canteen as well as the closest places we’ve got to go to eat like Asda, Morrisons, Lidl, Costa and Wilko. There are so many shops in town you can get it from. It’s all those different sources coming into one place, and four bin bags in a week guys? That’s ridiculous. We’ve not been able to go further with that, so that’s what the project is.”

What do you mean, “go further”?

“We’ve talked about it, we’ve mentioned it in assemblies; but we have rebel students who don’t turn up to assemblies. Not many people turn up at all. So we want to get the word out, guys this is stupid, stop. But it’s difficult, especially now because it’s end of term time. There’s barely anyone there who cares.”

So seeing how much plastic was wasted in that one week, are you doing anything to reduce your plastic use?

“My mum is already very good at recycling. We didn’t realise sometimes on the plastic bottles we do use, the tiny rings that attach the lids can mean the entire plastic bottle doesn’t get recycled because the tiny ring isn’t recyclable. I am happy to sit down once a week and take those off and put them in a bin. I, personally, am on reusable water bottles. I genuinely used to buy plastic straws, but now I only have three which I use. It’s something that I’m making sure I’m doing. It’s just it’s scary.”

I know! There’s so much. Plastic touches everything in my life. But just making small changes really helps.

“Tupperware, that’s a big one. We use a lot of Tupperware and it’s that typical British family thing we save them from the Chinese. But it’s switching them out for glass and recyclable containers. Right now, it’s the little changes because that’s all we can manage that’s sustainably for us. But I’m at the age now where I’m looking to move out within the next year, most likely to Uni, so I’m going to be making bigger changes with that. Hopefully, my family will carry it on!”

Going back to schools; what do you think the school, the college can do to combat the problem? You mentioned they have recycling bins?

“Recycling bins are a relatively new thing. The Ambassador programme started when I was in year 10.”

What is the Ambassador programme?

“It’s a group of students, basically a group of prefects. It’s a student voice, a student council. We were in the first group, three years ago, and the recycling bins were the first thing we put in. However, being a cleaner and having inside knowledge, I know they don’t buy the recycling bin bags anymore. Or if they do, they are hidden or well stashed. If they don’t have any, as a cleaner, you can either label the plastic bag and hope they find out it’s a recycling bag, or just put in the black bin bag and carry on with your job. It’s making OFSTED happy purely on appearance basis. So following through on that would be step number one because I genuinely don’t think they’d get far without that.

“I know the kitchen do, the kitchen do that really well. The big dustbins that you should put the recycling in are right outside. So it’s easy for them, they do it consistently. They are brilliant.

“But it’s like, get that down and then we can carry on!”

Do you think there’s anything they can do to encourage the students to use recycling? Poster campaigns, assemblies; or is that like talking to a brick wall?

“It’s a bit talking to a brick wall. It’s mostly the Ambassadors doing the work, which is upsetting. There are a few teachers which are very passionate and obviously it’s quite strict in their classroom, but they can only ever restrict it to their classroom. When students are out and about they need to put their bottle somewhere, it’s either the floor or the nearest bin. So maybe make it easier by having more recycling bins out.”

Do they have any on the field? Because at the end of every break time, that would be just rubbish.

“It still is. One of the teachers, that’s his main goal at the moment to stop the littering. He’s had words with me, because of our goal with college, but he can’t afford to get the bins out on the field. He can’t do it. Because it’s a public school, it’s down to cost and obviously there are still cuts going on.

“The school has loads of links to other schools – students, staff, parents – so I think changing the mindset of the school and making it easier for kids to recycle it would move to the other schools. If you get the kids to do it, then their parents will. It could just be a massive wave. A positive wave.”

We need a few of those!

As part of this positive wave, do you think one of the ways we could be doing this is better educating kids on the dangers of single use plastics?

“Heeeeeeeell yeah.”

End of term, rather than watching the first hour of Pirates of the Caribbean have a seminar on single use plastics?

“Genuinely. In college it’s a little bit different, because people kind of take that last week as optional week. It’s not, but people take it as so. But in school, it is compulsory to go in. So target them younger. The majority will be there with little to do, in smaller groups it’s a lot less boring, a lot less like an assembly. If you make it like a classroom, you could make it so much more interesting than just talking at them. Because there is already so much of that on the media and they are clearly not paying attention to that. It’s already in assemblies and they’re clearly not paying attention to that. There’s recycling bins everywhere, clearly not paying attention to that; so let’s just make it part of the classroom. It’s six hours of their day, every day for however long. There are so many free resources online.

“When I went to Borneo, I think that was one of the biggest things that kicked it off. We had lessons every day. They were lessons, group talks, just discussions and debates on the environment surrounding us there and then. So I think, me doing this project on something more local will have much more of an impact on the kids. With the group that went to Borneo, we were litter picking and being able to see the impact on us and the environment around us was one of the biggest things that made it hit home. A lot of the stuff we were picking up was English or Chinese or Mexican and coming in from the sea. All these countries coming into one and just attacking this one place. And that’s kind if a bit it’s like at here; all these different things coming in and still attacking home. So I think making the locality would make it hit home.”

Do you think the schools should be promoting plastic alternatives?

“I think they’ve tried with the reusable bottles, but there are very little taps available. Which sounds bad, but it is bad. There is one water fountain outside or you have to go the kitchen but there massive queues because they’ve condensed two dining areas into one. Or the science classrooms, but you’re not really allowed to drink in the classrooms. Out of convenience, they just buy another bottle.

They’ve tried, but it’s not worked. It’s given a promise but not fulfilled it.

Polystyrene is a massive thing they use. It’s one of the biggest things we pick up, wherever we go it’s everywhere. It’s just like, cardboard must be so much cheaper. Just using that and then putting it in the recycling bin. That can’t be too much skin off your nose.”

Do you hope your project will help people get over their fear of change and make them think that it’s quite sensible?

“That’s a good spin on it. It’s mostly just kind of giving people a kick up the bum and makes them less afraid of changing. That’s all I’m hoping for it right now. Even though it’s minor right now, but I hope it grows. At Uni, I want to do Geography so it’ll continue through my dissertation. Well, I hope so. There are societies in every Uni I’m looking at for conservation, plastic use; and there are sub topics and other courses I can take.”

So you’re looking to go to University, are you hoping to continue that into a career in conservation?

“At the moment, yeah. But I know that could change. I used to want to study maths and be a maths teacher! For the minute, I want to go into conservation. But also, if I take on Geography I know I can continue the conservation aspect in whatever I do. So one of the things I’m looking at right now is Geology and predicting earthquakes, which obviously the environment comes into massively. It’s not exactly conservation, but it’s climate change and trying to put that on hold. But literally, the environment is Geography, so it will be continued in what I do for the rest of my life.”

Norton-in-Hales, taken from their Facebook

Got to love an eco warrior. I will be keeping up with Niamh as she continues her project, hopefully get a picture or two of the finish sculpture. For now, I wish her luck with her EPQ, Uni applications, and all the great changes I’m sure she’ll bring about.