Sustainability in action in tuckshops

Sustainable practices in tuckshops are fast becoming a focus in Australian schools. Tackling food waste is a big priority for many tuckshop convenors and while tackling this can be overwhelming at first, there's many ways to start slow and build your way up. 

In this episode we talk to Sarah Potts, Co-Convenor from Kenmore South State School, and Natalie Farrugia, the outgoing convenor at Newmarket State School about easy steps to start making your tuckshop more sustainable.

This podcast is proudly brought to you by the Queensland Association of School Tuckshops and funded by the Queensland Government through Health and Wellbeing Queensland.

Transcript

Donna Moyle  00:08

Hello everyone, this is Donna Moyle and you're listening to the Talking Healthier Tuckshops Podcast, the show that talks all things school tuckshops. This podcast is proudly brought to you by the Queensland Association of School Tuckshops and is funded by the Queensland Government through Health and Wellbeing Queensland. From the health of your kids and family, to your own wellbeing and happiness, we'll explore topics that matter to you, giving you easy ways to implement them in your tuckshop and your day-to-day life. 

 Hi, everyone, welcome to the next episode of our podcast. We have two special guests joining me today. Sarah Potts, co-convener from Kenmore South State School, and then Natalie Furrugia, the outgoing convener at Newmarket State School, but also one of our very special QAST staff members. So welcome to you both. By way of introduction, Sarah, for all of our listeners there has been in the position of co- convener for a few years now at Kenmore South State School. And in that time, she has transformed the school's tuckshop approach to sustainability practices in more ways than one. Throughout this podcast, Sarah will share how she started many sustainable practices and how she continues to see them implemented to this day across the school. Something very special that Sarah has done, which she will share in more detail later, is getting students involved and along for the ride. Our other special guest speaker is Natalie Furrugia. Natalie has been the tuckshop convener at Newmarket State School for the past two years. We've also been very lucky to have Natalie deliver the Healthy Eats program here at QAST and more recently, work on some sustainability resources for our members. As part of this work, Natalie and I went out to Kenmore South State School a few months ago to check out what Sarah has been doing. And from there, this podcast was born. So, I thought it's a lovely opportunity to introduce Natalie to our tuckshop superstars across the state and hear from her as well. And to our listeners, thank you so much for joining us. I'm really excited about this podcast. Sustainable practices in tuckshops is becoming more and more the focus, particularly with regards to food waste. I'm really looking forward to hearing from what Sarah and Natalie both have to say about the fabulous, sustainable practices that they've been implementing, but also hearing from Sarah directly about what she's been doing at Kenmore South State School. So let's get into it. Welcome, Sarah. How are you?

Sarah Potts  00:33

I'm well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Donna Moyle  01:38

Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you so much for coming along. today. It's not easy sometimes to find the time, I think when we all work full-time. So, I really appreciate you being here and taking the time to have a chat to us and sharing all of your ideas and your experience around sustainable practices in tuckshops. So thank you.

Sarah Potts  03:01

You're welcome. I'm so excited to be here and talk about one of the things that really gets me up in the morning. And that is all about sustainability. So yeah, I love that. 

Donna Moyle  03:11

And hi, Natalie, how are you?

Natalie Farrugia  03:13

Hi, good thank you. Thanks for having me along.

Donna Moyle  03:16

It's very good to have you here. And it's very good to have you as part of the QAST team. We're very lucky to have you. But look what I might do is I'll kick off with our first question to Sarah. So, Sarah, what are some of the top things that you did to make your tuckshop more sustainable over recent years?

Sarah Potts  03:33

It's so hard to narrow it down to three, but I've done a really good job, I reckon. Basically, the top three things that we did was the first one would be to introduce various waste streams. So things like recycling bins, organic waste bins, paper recycling, just anything we could do divert things from landfill. Probably the next thing we did was basically eliminate or get rid of plastic altogether. Obviously, it didn't happen immediately. But our next goal was to sort of change all of our packaging to something that could either be recyclable, or compostable, preferably at home, not industrially compostable, that's a whole other thing. And then probably the third thing was to actually start the composting. So they're probably the main things and if I was to add another one would be to get a good working relationship with the school, and to get them on board to help me with things like recycling and composting. 

Donna Moyle  04:31

Fabulous. And you mentioned the first one around food waste and making sure that the school was increasing their awareness of how much food waste was being created. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you actually encouraged or improved, or I guess reduced food waste across the school and within the tuckshop?

Sarah Potts  04:51

Um, yeah, I'm trying to work out the best way to explain it, but probably the first thing that we did was I spoke to the school about food waste and wanting to eliminate food waste where possible to find out what they were doing. And asked the school in the P&C whether we could purchase some bins to put all of our food waste in. And then we were using that food waste in our own homes. So we were taking it home at the end of the day, or giving it to volunteers who had chickens or compost bins, or I was bringing it home to my composting.  But very quickly that sort of changed and the school really got on board and gave us some compost bins because they had applied for some grants around organic food waste anyway. And it all just really sort of gelled together. We just started collecting all of the food waste that we could from fruit and not too much bread, but basically the fruit and vegetables that we use, and bits of paper and cardboard and anything that basically is able to be composted or breaks down easily. And yeah, that's how we started.

Donna Moyle  04:52

In terms of volume, like how much food waste do you think you would remove from landfill every week?

Sarah Potts  05:49

Yeah, you know that's something I've been thinking about, because we've been doing so many practical things that we actually hadn't done a lot of data-based things, and I was thinking the other day that we should have. We should probably weigh our waste so we can do a proper waste audit. That's something on my goals to do next year. In terms of giving you an idea, I guess we would probably have, if you think of a two-litre bucket, that would probably be filled a couple of times a day on a busy day. Pretty much everything that is food, apart from meat, is composted, and I wish I was a little bit more together and had some actual numbers and data to give you because I don't, but if I had to guess I want to say percentage wise it would be 90% of everything that we produce that is food, doesn't get wasted. Nothing gets thrown into the bin. That's food basically unless it's meat.

Donna Moyle  07:16

Yeah, awesome. I guess to put it in perspective, for our listeners, how many orders a week would you do? 

Sarah Potts  07:23

700-800 a week

Donna Moyle  07:25

Yeah, so that's quite a lot. So, 90% of 700 orders, and all the food, particularly if we're chopping up vegetables, and there's little tops and tails that don't go in and then you've got the leftovers at the end of that once they're sort of half consumed, that's quite a lot, isn't it? Really? So that is so amazing.

Sarah Potts  07:44

Yeah, it is a lot. I guess the thing we don't have control over is how much, So that's just in our tuckshop if I'm being more specific, in terms of the school community, that would be different. Because I don't have, I don't want to use the word control, but you know, I don't know how much food the children throw in the bin, or in the landfill bin. So that's a whole other issue. But yeah, in terms of just in the tuckshop, we don't throw any food in the bin if we can help it. 

Donna Moyle  08:11

How many landfill bins... because that was part of the implementation wasn't it… encouraging the students to throw their food waste into these bins? How many across, even though you don't have control over them, how many across the school do you think there now exists?

Sarah Potts  08:26

You mean compost bins?

Donna Moyle  08:27

The ones for those end users to put their food in. 

Sarah Potts  08:30

Yeah, well now it's fantastic. Every class now has their own small bin that they take with them to the eating area. So, it's progressed quite a lot this year. Because we've really been pushing hard to minimise food waste. So, each class now has their own little bin. And then there's, in addition to that, there's probably about five in-ground compost bins, a couple of worm farms, and then some bigger compost bins around the gardens. So, the kids are welcome to use the, sorry students I should say, they're welcome to use all of those bins. But they're really encouraged to put as much of their food that they're having at lunchtime, into these little bins which are not too heavy, that they can basically carry at the end of lunchtime and tip into either the worm farm or the in-ground compost bins.

Donna Moyle  09:21

So there's lots of accessibility I think is what I'm hearing across the school. Lots of different touchpoints for children to get involved. But also for the tuckshop in terms of locations for where they can put the food waste so that it does actually contribute to giving back to the school community gardens, which also allows the students the opportunity to see where that food waste goes once you've finished eating it... what happens to it... because I think there is a lot of children these days just put stuff in the bin and they don't really understand what happens to it after that. So providing that opportunity with worm farms and the compost bins throughout the school, that’s kind of where those children are being able to get involved. 

Sarah Potts  10:06

Yeah, it's one of those approaches that when we first, for instance, started putting all of our waste into the compost, I mean, the food waste bins in tuckshop, obviously I realized that just in the tuckshop, right? And the students aren't seeing what's happening. So, we really needed to expand it into the school so that they could start to take ownership and understand all the things that you just said, where it goes, which bin and why and all those sorts of questions and answers. And, yeah, once we sort of started having conversations, and that's why I've said that communication is really the key. Because once you start communicating with the school, and the school talks to the teachers, the teachers talk to the students, and then we're all sort of on the same page of how we can introduce this whole concept of eliminating food waste from landfill. And it has to be, like you said, it has to be visible to the children because these days if there's a bin and they don't really think about it, then they're running off to the oval to have a good time, they're just going to throw it in whenever they can get it in.

Donna Moyle  11:15

The first one they see on the road, right? 

Sarah Potts  11:17

Yeah, it's true. And even sometimes with all the bin choices now, the students still throw things in any bin. Because yeah, there's still a hole. Like, I feel like we've only just touched the surface, and we're doing a lot. So, I think children by nature are busy and they need to be seeing things in practice, and regularly and repeated for them to be able to take on a new habit. So yeah, it's a process. 

Donna Moyle  11:46

It's a good point that you've made around that repeated, it's almost like you repeat it and repeat it ad nauseam until you feel like you can't say it anymore, until you're blue in the face. And then it's almost then that at that point, people get the message that oh, okay, this is what we do. And this is how we're going to do it from here on in.

Sarah Potts  12:02

Yeah, totally.

Donna Moyle  12:05

You mentioned earlier as well, one of the other three areas was packaging for your tuckshop. Now I'm not going to give away any of the spoilers, but can you tell us in terms of your packaging, how do you sit with it at the moment? What's the percentage of packaging that's recyclable or compostable? Versus I guess that more, not single use plastic because that's not allowed, but it's the stuff that doesn't really recycle well? Or the one-off, sort of discarded into the bin afterwards? How are you going with all that packaging at your school? 

Sarah Potts  12:40

Again, if we're just we're just talking about the tuckshop? 

Donna Moyle  12:43

Of course, just the tuckshop sorry?

Sarah Potts  12:45

Yeah, no, no, that's okay. Because I sometimes I sometimes forget that I'm part of this wider community. But in the tuckshop, we basically I would say, we're definitely above 90% now. And the goal is 100% to be recyclable. Yeah, I would say we're a good 95% of our packaging is either recyclable or home compostable. We've just tried to make sure there's basically no plastic at all. The only plastic that we do have are things that we can't control. So things that we buy in. So you know, pasta packets and rice packets and things that come from the supermarket. But in terms of packaging that we're buying in to send food out to the community, that’s not plastic. We've got no plastic there.

Natalie Farrugia  13:33

So Sarah, can I just ask a question as a convener it's so hard to give away gladwrap. What's your alternative to gladwrap, what are you using?

Sarah Potts  13:45

So you mean gladwrap that you're serving the community?  So plastic wrap that you might use to wrap your apple slinky or boiled eggs? What do you use instead of gladwrap? We use paper. So we use, it's called a specific a half greaseproof grease proof paper that is unwaxed and unbleached. So it can be recycled or put in the compost, and it breaks down. And the only change it makes is that we don't make out all of our Slinkys for the whole day. So first break, we'll make first break Slinkys and wrap them in the paper, put them in the fridge and they're perfectly fine. And we just don't make the second break ones because the paper gets wet. 

Natalie Farrugia  14:36

Ah, okay, good, tip.

Sarah Potts  14:40

Because Apple Slinkys you know, it would be different if we were making 100 But we're just making you know, 12 or 20. Yeah, so it's not a big deal. 

Natalie Farrugia  14:50

Okay, that's really good to know. And the other thing I was going to ask, can you elaborate a little bit more on the difference between home compostable and industrially compostable products, because I know some suppliers have jumped on the bandwagon and promoting their products as compostable. But when you look more closely, if you chucked it in your home compost, it would still be there in 100 years. So how do you know the difference? Does it have to say it on the product, or you just know from experience,

Sarah Potts  15:20

I guess from my experience, it's not always on the product, it'll be on the box that you buy the whole product in. But if you're buying a whole box of the product, you're not going to know necessarily, unless you read their fine print. If I'm honest, it did take a bit of time, I did do quite a lot of reading about different companies or I would find a company and then I would go to their website and read all their "abouts" and work out what they did, how they did it. And so it did take a bit of time. I guess I was highly motivated. Generally, the store that you're buying it from is, you would hope, knowledgeable, so I use them as a resource as well. So I'll say to them, or if they don't know usually if you ask and because it's their business, they'll go and find out for you. That's another way of doing it is I say "is that a home compostable product? Is the lid compostable?" Because that's often an issue. Usually, lids aren't compostable. But there are some specific companies that are making home compostable products, because the industrial compostable products are... Unless your school, which is unlikely because school resources are often limited, unless they're happy to, you know, get an industrial recycling industrial compostable bin, which schools can buy or purchase for a monthly price or a yearly price. And then someone will come and pick it up and take it away, and then they'll compost off site. But I mean, most schools aren't going to pay for that. They're usually only going to pay for a cardboard bin, industrial bin, and sometimes not even that. Have I explained that properly?

Natalie Farrugia  17:01

You have perfectly and I didn't even know that industrial composting facilities were available for purchase or rent in schools. I didn't know that. So thank you. Something to look into. I think I remember you saying on the day that we visited your school that you think you've approximately halved the general waste, whether that was across the whole school, because you talked about not just recycling paper and cardboard, but you talked about Containers for Change, and toothbrush receptacles and what not. So a 50% reduction in the school's general waste is quite significant.

Sarah Potts  17:38

Yeah, and it's really not even that. It's amazing how quickly that changes. Because it's things like all of the cardboard packaging that, you know it's great that everything's delivered in cardboard, but cardboard takes up a lot of space, especially if you don't have cleaners or people who are dealing with it or disposing of it, flat packing it, you know, they can very quickly fill up a landfill bin in no time. And a recycling bin. And sometimes our school was getting those big industrial landfill bins emptied every week. And it's an enormous cost.

Natalie Farrugia  18:15

That's expensive, yeah. 

Sarah Potts  18:17

Yeah, so definitely I would say, half, it's definitely halved, it's a lot less frequent.

Natalie Farrugia  18:23

That's really fantastic. And when you were talking about point three that you made in the first question, about getting the composting system up and running, was that at, probably not your expense, but was that at the P&C expense, or was there a grant involved? How did you actually purchase the bins in the first place? 

Sarah Potts  18:41

It coincided with the school getting a grant. So they actually, by the time I asked the question about having a tumbler or some sort of composting system, they had already either applied or received the grant money. So they had some money sitting there. So I didn't actually go through the P&C, but I guess being a P&C business generally tuckshops would ask their P&C, and to be honest tumblers are inexpressive, especially if you go through Brisbane City Council, because Brisbane City Council give you a $70 rebate towards a compost bin and most compost bins, depending I mean, you can get some super fancy ones that are a couple of $100. But even if it's a couple of $100, it's still only just over $100 to have a compost tumbler. So it's really not a lot of money, especially if you pitch it, again, it's about communication, if you pitch it to how it's going to benefit the school, benefits the P&C, benefits the community, there's lots of positives about starting composting and I find it's quite easy to convince them, not that I'm trying to you know, pull anyone's leg or anything, but it's something that most people are on board with anyway these days. 

Natalie Farrugia  19:57

And the kids love it? They get involved? They like turning the compost and digging around?

Sarah Potts  20:02

They do, they love seeing all the bugs. It took a bit of time for them to understand that it wasn't gross. There was a lot of them standing back looking at me thinking, what am I doing. But you know, kids are so inquisitive by nature that, you know, if there's someone outside tipping a whole lot of food into something, and then you're tumbling, and it's making this cool sound, and it's something that's interesting to them, and it's somewhere where they can see it, you know, if it's behind a building, and they're not seeing it, that's been something I've really noticed, it's out in the open, they're walking past me all the time. So you know, a lot of places wanted to put the compost bins, you know, out of the way, because they could be smelly, or they could be gross, or you don't want kids playing with them. But if the kids see them, and see how you're using them, as I said, they're very inquisitive. They'll come and ask questions. And at first they thought it was disgusting. And then I found that talking to them about what compost was and how it breaks down and all the bugs and insects that can be part of that little community, they found that they were really interested. They just, you know, kids, as I said, they're so inquisitive. And then I thought, well, this is interesting, I'll start putting up some signs with pictures of the different bugs and what they're called, trying to sort of include it, because there are kids that don't want to necessarily look in the bin because they think they might catch some sort of disease. They might walk past and they'll see the picture and they'll go, oh, that bug lives in the compost. And then they might go home and talk to their parents about it. I just find it's just a knock-on effect. 

Natalie Farrugia  21:54

Yeah, that's so cool. 

Sarah Potts  21:56

Yeah, anyway, that's a bit off the topic. But yeah, a compost bin is really quite simple to get started. It does require someone to look after it though.

Donna Moyle  22:03

I love talking to you, Sarah about this stuff. Because I just love that it wasn't like there was a rhyme or reason, there was no strategy. It wasn't like there was an action plan, it was all things that you were like, "No, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna give this a go". And then you saw an opportunity with the children walking past and you're like, "Well, I'm gonna go and try and educate them about it, because they're asking me questions, they're inquisitive. And I love that you've just sort of seen an opportunity. And you're like, "I'm going to give that a go and see how that works". Rather than worrying about if it's going to fail, whether it's not going to have the impact that you want it to have. Over the last couple of years it just keeps growing and growing and growing. So it started with the compost. And now it's moving on to student education. But it's all about bringing it back to the tuckshop and how the tuckshop's contributing, which encourages the children to be more aware of the food that they're eating. Like it's just the flow-on effect of all of your passion and enthusiasm for what you're doing. It's so inspiring. Like just sitting here listening to you and Nat talk. And just even about the packaging, just even having the passion to want to go away and research about the packaging. I just love that you're so committed, and you're so passionate about it. And it just is oozing through everything that you're doing. I could listen to you talk about it all day, to be honest.

Sarah Potts  23:23

That’s very kind. That's very nice of you to say Donna because often I would think that I'm absolutely boring people by talking about waste, it's not something that some people want to talk about at all.

Natalie Farrugia  23:35

I actually think a lot of conveners would really be so keen to get it under control. But it seems like one of those things that's too hard. You know, you've got to meet your costs, you've got to make a nutritious, healthy menu, you've got to make it delicious so the kids will actually eat it. And sustainability seems like a desirable, you know, dream, rather than something that's doable, and you've proven that it is. You've absolutely smashed it out of the park.  Your tuckshop's amazing. 

Sarah Potts  24:06

That’s very kind.

Donna Moyle  24:10

Well, I guess for all of the listeners that will be tuning into this podcast, but for any other tuckshop convenors out there, what would be some of those tips, or I guess, maybe give us three tips for any conveners that are wanting to implement but struggling to start, you know, how could they get some sustainability practices up and running in in their tuckshop? Like what would be their thing? What would be the things that you would get them to focus on or to think about in the first instance? 

Sarah Potts  24:38

The main tip would be to maybe make some goals. I'm trying to think of the best way to say it. I mean, I've got written here in my notes to say a mind map because I'm a big fan of mind maps so I like to just write down sustainability and tuckshops and then just make a whole lot of little points about the goals that I would do in terms of how I would make that happen. And I guess then from that, break it down, probably into small pieces and then think, Okay, well, it might be something as simple as, okay I want to do recycling, I don't want to throw everything in the landfill bin in the tuckshop. So I want to make sure I'm recycling the tins from the tomatoes and jars from the jam or whatever you're using, jam's not a great example, but you know, passata, for us it's passata.

Donna Moyle  25:37

But you're right. So it's about really looking at what you're currently using to see where the opportunities already exist. 

Sarah Potts  25:44

That's such a better way of putting it Donna, thank you. Yes, basically it's about using what you have, and how you can make adjustments that aren't too hard or difficult or time consuming, because we all know that time is our enemy in in tuckshops, and everyone's busy. And so yeah, it's about finding those opportunities. So things like... I went and bought originally, a bin from Bunnings that cost all of $10, and one of those big garbage bins, and yeah, started throwing tins in there. And just from the Passata, or just from pasta sauce, or cardboard boxes, or, you know, anything that I could find that could be diverted from the landfill bin. And then I did used to take it home at the end of the day and put it in my recycle bin, because we didn't have recycling bins at school. So that was just one little thing I've found, you know, I would do that. I would be definitely breaking down, you can't do everything. And it can be very overwhelming to try and do all of the things that are on your goals for sustainability and tuckshop. Or even things like making your washing up liquid grey water safe, so that when you wash your lettuces or your washing up maybe a container, like we do use so much water, and we save the water and tip it on the grass, we used to tip it on the grass outside before we had a garden. Things like that, or you know, just even changing from we used to put our sandwiches in gladwrap and then in a in a plastic ziplock bag. So we just started getting the unbleached greaseproof paper and wrapping sandwiches in paper and then putting them in. If you want to put them in something, you could put them in a compostable bag, because you can buy those now. So just little things. It doesn't have to be a lot of things. It might be that you might want to collect food waste, because you have chickens at home or you have a regular volunteer that's happy to take food for their chickens, because a lot of volunteers who have chickens love getting scraps. So that's probably the biggest thing for me would be to make some goals. And look at where you can start that doesn't take a lot of time or effort. 

Donna Moyle  28:01

Absolutely like so it's almost like starting small start with the small stuff first, low hanging fruit, go through that stuff, and focus on that as a priority for I guess, I don't know maybe six months, 12 months, and then focus on the next thing for the next time period. So not trying to do four things at once. But do one thing at a time and then build on it. Because I feel like that's sort of how you're grown like you didn't start doing what you're doing now on day one. This is just organically over the last couple of years. Everything that you do is just grown on top of each other, hasn't it?

Sarah Potts  28:36

Oh, totally. So exactly. It's been, what, four years or just over since I started. And, you know, it's crazy to think I was thinking that this morning that I used to pack up the recycling at the end of the day in a bag and bring it home and tip it in my own recycle bin at home. And that was the first thing I did, because I just couldn't stand seeing everything go into landfill. But exactly, it's about choosing the things that you can do easily, or just make a little difference. And it will. It's like a snowball, though. I will warn you because that's what I found happened. I was like, ah, you know, we can't keep using, you know, these Ziplock bags they take 1,000 years or something to break down in landfill. So, how about we use paper and paper bags? And then yeah, it just kept slowly snowballing and then I started having conversations with people so it just starts to infiltrate what you do. And that's the good thing about it. It becomes kind of like part of your... you come up with little ideas. Well maybe not everyone's like me, but that's what I found. You know, like, we realised that for instance, you've always got printouts... it's lots of paper that's printed on one side, and we were putting stickers for kids, because we have pickup items like most tuckshops, to come back and pick up their ice blocks or whatever, or whatever their pickup item is, and we used to stick the stickers onto paper bags. And then we thought, well, why don't we cut up the paper that we have printed on one side that would normally go in the bin and we stick the stickers on that. So we use scrap paper for the kids and that's saving money for the tuckshop as well as saving paper that we would have otherwise thrown in the bin.

Donna Moyle  30:27

So it's like reuse, recycle. What's it what are the three? It's reduce, reuse...

Natalie Farrugia  30:33

Recycle

Donna Moyle  30:35

See, I knew you guys know better than I do.

Natalie Farrugia  30:39

How many volunteers would you have on a standard busy day?

Sarah Potts  30:42

On our busiest day, which is a Friday? We have four volunteers. We're very lucky.

Natalie Farrugia  30:46

Okay. And yourself and your co-convener so there'd be six staff? Yes. Okay. Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. 

Sarah Potts  30:55

Yeah, we're really a nice place to be. Yeah, it's pretty busy, but it increases during the week. So that's the most volunteers will have in a day. Sometimes it's three, sometimes it's four. And then other days, we'll just have one or two.  Yeah, that's really awesome.

Donna Moyle  31:11

So I guess just to wrap it up, if someone was sitting there today in their tuckshop, and they were thinking, What can I do today? Or what can I do to ask the school for support to make this happen? What would be just, I guess one final piece of advice, to a tuckshop convener wanting to get started?

Sarah Potts  31:29

I guess, communication, like just communicating with your ideas with your staff, and your P&C and your school or someone in your school, who you know, there's always someone that you feel more comfortable talking to, or you've connected well with, just talking to those people about your ideas, and how you want to make some changes.

Donna Moyle  31:51

So getting that community network up and running, so a support base? 

Sarah Potts  31:55

I think so I think that's the most important thing, and then sometimes just doing things, which is probably not what I should say, but doing things sometimes just because you want to make some changes, and maybe ask for forgiveness later.

Donna Moyle  32:10

Lead by example. 

Sarah Potts  32:11

I mean, I think it's, I do think communication is the key. And I mean, I, we couldn't have done half of the things that we did without the P&Cs support and talking to you guys. I mean, you know you're a great resource for people. So being able to reach out to different organizations that could be of assistance or give you ideas, or, yeah, there's lots of information out there now.

Donna Moyle  32:42

Ah, thank you, Sarah. I feel like we learn more from you than we can actually teach you about sustainability at the moment. We have lots of ideas, but you're the one actually putting them into practice. So I do find that you're such a great example of how to get the ball rolling with sustainability practices in your in your tuckshop. And the best thing is just to start somewhere, right, like just start, just do some something somewhere.

Sarah Potts  33:06

Yeah. What do they say? Start now with what you have? 

Donna Moyle  33:09

Yes, yes, exactly. Start now with what you have. Don't worry about tomorrow. Just worry about today. Thank you so much, Sarah, for joining, I again, have learned so much. I know this is probably the fifth time we've spoken about this. But every single time I talked to you, I learn something new. So thank you so much. I'm going to walk away from this a little bit wiser now about sustainability practices, and also how to help schools and tuckshops to sort of get it started. So thank you. I really appreciate you coming in today. And thank you, Nat for coming along. And also sharing your passion for sustainable practices. I know you've done a lot in your little tuckshop, we didn't even get to touch on your tuckshop. But you have done a lot in the two years that you've been there as well, just with implementing a little bit more awareness around food waste and recycling bins around the school. That's not an easy feat. So thank you again for joining us. It's been lovely to have you. 

Natalie Farrugia  34:06

Absolutely.. And Sarah, you're a guru. You're an inspiration. Thank you.

Sarah Potts  34:10

That is a word that I wouldn't call myself but thank you so much, you've made my day now. And Nat well done. I mean, I would like to come and visit your tuckshop and see these things that you've implemented. It sounds exciting.

Natalie Farrugia  34:25

Not much. You wouldn't learn a lot. But yeah, we're definitely compositing now, which we weren't before. And we're recycling everything. I'm actually picking things out of the bin, I'm a bit sad that way, and put them in the recycling. And yeah, trying to tell the kids there's a bin right there with a yellow lid. That means recycling. Can you please put your recyclable item in there. You know, just so far, that's all I've done so far. But I think we can do a lot more with education. So yeah, we've come a long way. 

Sarah Potts  34:59

I was just going to say thank you so much for letting me have a space to talk about this, because it's super important to me. And, you know, I feel really grateful that you've allowed me to talk about it. I could talk to you forever, as you know, but I appreciate it.

Natalie Farrugia  35:16

Absolutely with our pleasure. 

Donna Moyle  35:17

Oh, it's our pleasure. We want to send this message and share this message with the tuckshop community in Queensland. And in fact, anyone who logs onto this podcast could listen to it. So it's not just in Queensland, so who knows who'll pick this up and run with it, Sarah. I think that's the beauty of these little podcasts. So, thank you guys for coming along. And thank you to the listeners. For everyone who's hanging in there to the end. We really appreciate you listening today. 

The Talking Healthier Tuckshops Podcast is produced by the team at QAST and made possible thanks to funding from the Queensland Government through Health and Wellbeing Queensland. 

Visit qast.org.au to learn more about other program opportunities, and for the latest tuckshop tips, ideas and advice.