Mayo primary school launches unique 'Sustainable Threads' project

A student-led sustainability initiative has been launched at St. Peter’s National School, Snugboro, titled ‘Sustainable Threads’.

The hard-working sixth class pupils at St. Peter’s are behind this project, with the support of school principal Mr. Eamonn Shaughnessy and teacher Ms. Justine Lawless.

What began as a classroom discussion around sustainability and waste quickly developed into a hugely ambitious and exciting project that the pupils have worked tirelessly to bring to life.

Over the years, the school’s lost and found area was awash with unclaimed clothing and accessories which included expensive school crested tracksuit tops, school uniforms, sports gear, coats, hats, scarves and much more.

Rather than send unclaimed items to landfill, the sixth pupils have decided to sell those items as second-hand school wear.

All of this project took place in the school, with the pupils washing the clothes in the school washing machine, before drying the items and preparing them for resale.

Mr. Shaughnessy said: “Basically, at the end of every year, we'd have a load of items of clothing left over that had not been claimed and therefore became lost and found.

"This year, rather than send it all in to landfill, we took the notion that why don't we just sell it on the website Vinted. Beforehand, we contacted the parents and our general school body to see if anyone is missing an item of clothing to come and have a look and make sure we're not going to sell it.

“We checked all the lost and found clothes for name tags and couldn't find any. So, as I said, rather than go to landfill, we put it up for sale on Vinted.”

The school principal explained that the sixth class pupils really rowed in behind this project.

“The pupils had to wash and clean the items and prepare them. They then had to photograph the clothes, write descriptions in order to try and make a sale.

"Of course, there is also postage and packaging, and then having to organise the areas of finance and money. It's been hugely beneficial for the pupils learning real-life skills, apart from the fact that we're promoting sustainability, and the whole area of environmental awareness for the next generation is important as well.”

Mr. Shaughnessy got the idea from seeing his own daughter use the Vinted website.

“My daughter was buying and selling some items on Vinted, and I thought to myself why couldn’t we do this with our lost and found items at the school.

"I mentioned it to Ms. Justine Lawless (sixth class teacher) and she was fully supportive of the idea. Ms. Lawless came up with some wonderful ideas, one of which was helping the children design a ‘Sustainable Threads’ logo.”

Ms. Lawless said that other schools may take inspiration from this idea.

“We launched this project via our school platform and I also shared it on my own social media. Some of my friends are also teachers and they have taken a real interest in our initiative as well.

“So far, we have made 19 sales, and one of our first sales was from Donegal.

"With the current cost of living crisis, being able to buy second hand school clothing items could be a welcome relief for parents. Also, funds raised go back into the school which will benefit pupils.

“Parents also love the saving money aspect of the initiative because as everyone knows uniforms are expensive. The children are also learning lots of entrepreneurial skills as well.

"These sales are all anonymous and the pupils don’t have access to the names of people buying these second-hand items, and the account is run by school staff.

"We will also ask this year’s outgoing sixth class if they would like to donate their school uniforms to the project.”