A competition has been launched for schoolchildren to design artwork for South Lakeland District Council’s bin wagons.
The winning designs will be emblazoned onto several vehicles from the council’s fleet which visits 56,000 homes each week, travelling around 17,000 miles, as well as being displayed on posters across South Lakeland.
Primary and secondary schools across the district have been invited to take part and there will be two overall winners: one from Years 5 and 6, and one from Years 7 and 8.
The competition is to design a poster that will inspire people to take action on the climate emergency, no matter how small, and to give a clear and hopeful message of how a low-carbon world can benefit us all.
Hannah Girvan, the authority’s sustainability co-ordinator, said: “We are really excited to be able to work with experts from The University of Manchester to offer this Climate Emergency competition to schools in our area.
“We hope this competition can encourage children to think more positively about the opportunities that acting on climate change bring to our area and the world, and that doing nothing is not an option.
“We know times are really difficult at the moment for families and schools.
“The COVID emergency has turned our world upside down and many of you are now stuck at home with home schooling and we wanted to offer schools an opportunity to change the conversation away from COVID briefly.
“The climate emergency has not gone away over the past 10 months and hopefully we can look to a green recovery as we come out of this pandemic – 2021 has the potential to be such a pivotal year for climate change especially with the next UN conference in Glasgow in November.
“We look forward to receiving your posters and hope they can help to spread the climate emergency message across our district.”
Researcher Dr Laura Leay, based at The University of Manchester’s Dalton Cumbrian Facility, part of the Dalton Nuclear Institute, said: “I’m delighted to be working with SLDC to engage with the local community on climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions.
“I believe the art competition is a great way to encourage interest and ownership around these issues and even inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers to help tackle the challenges we face.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing the art and messages that children would like their local communities to see as it’s their future that we must all work to protect.”
Councillor Dyan Jones, SLDC’s climate emergency and localism portfolio holder, added: “I look forward to seeing some really creative and inspiring ideas.
“How exciting it would be for your idea to end up on the side of one of our wagons for everyone to see!”
The closing date for entries is February 26, with the winners to be announced at the end of March after judging by a panel.
If you’d like to find out more about the competition and how to take part, email [email protected]
