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Green Actions

Banishing bottles with Allotmint soap bars

How Wicor Primary School swapped liquid soap bottles for botanical soap bars.

A close up of a number of soap bars embossed with the lettering 'Hand Made Portsmouth, UK'

A Hampshire school, Wicor Primary, has been working relentlessly to reuse, reduce and recycle plastic for many years now.

Connect

Our 440 pupils, their families and the wider school community are passionate about the impact plastics is having in our homes, especially bathrooms. We know plastic waste is damaging our future and that of the planet, and we want to be able to demonstrate positive changes to our families and local communities rather than just lecturing.

 

Protect 

As a school with nationally acclaimed gardens and a bespoke environmental curriculum. Our drive to reduce the amount of plastic we use in our daily lives led to the idea of producing a botanical soap 'Allotmint', as an alternative to using liquid soap in plastic bottles which appears to be the norm for so many now. This is a small achievable change with a big impact, along the lines of pledges by many businesses to stop using plastic straws. We want to encourage as many people as possible to go back to the bar.

 

Enhance 

Our initiative #raisethebar has been a project driven by the pupils from the very beginning. Children have been propagating kilos of the main ingredient of the soap, organic black peppermint in the school allotment. During the start of the project last year we harvested over 13kilos of mint!

 

Samantha Worsey who owns local business The Southsea Bathing Hut has enabled children to develop their own traditionally made vegan, palm oil and plastic free soap! In June this year our soap won it's first award for our soapy science at the Better Energy Schools Award this year. With Garsons garden centre about to stock this stunning soap we are on the beginning of a very exciting journey.

A child in a bright orange school t-shirt picking mint
The Wicor Primary School logo

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