Looking after the environment and creating a sustainable space is an important issue for the Dunmore Lang College community.

With many of our students coming from rural areas affected by drought, fire and economic downturn, this is much more than an academic issue – it is their lived experience and an area where they want to make a real difference.

We began in 2014 with a two year changeover to LED lighting throughout the interior of the College, not only significantly improving our energy efficiency and reducing our power charges but also reducing the College’s carbon footprint.  We also power down our internal lighting in the College corridors.

Continuing this trend in 2016 the College replaced take-away food or drink containers and all students are offered a Keep Cup for use when taking a coffee from the dining hall and a multi-purpose lunch box for takeaway meals. These measures will significantly reduce the amount of waste that ends up as landfill and pollution.

To further reduce waste ‘Up-cycled Mugs’ sourced from local charity shops have been introduced into the dining hall. These have been a great hit and quite a few students have chosen a favourite cup as their very own by donating a gold coin to our ‘Cup box’. Read a magazine article on our sustainability efforts.

In addition, the College’s caterer, Alliance, has committed to reducing food waste and we are working together to introduce a herb garden and a composting scheme by the end of the year.

All of the College's waste is removed by Doyle Brothers, a company which makes recycling more efficient and accessible by collecting all waste in the one bin. Waste is sorted and after recyclable items have been removed what remains is processed into Processed Engineered Fuel, a fuel substitute for coal and gas. This process reduces landfill to an incredibly small amount of 3% of original volume going to landfill.

With each small change we inch closer to becoming carbon neutral and reducing our impact on the environment and increasingly scarce natural resources. 

View our Sustainability Poster.