Southampton Glebe Primary school is going "green" after a group of concerned students prompted the school to launch a recycling outreach campaign.

Teacher Kimberley Jackson said a group of students between the ages of eight and ten, became the "founders" of the school's new campaign after they collected 1,000 pieces of trash around the school grounds and on the Railway Trail — and found 25 percent of the items collected were recyclable.

The students researched waste management on the Internet and visited the Island's recycling plant to learn about the issue first-hand.

Their concern soon spread around the student body of 140 children and yesterday the school's Community Service Club officially launched the recycling campaign at a press conference with Minister of Works and Engineering, Dennis Lister.

The schoolchildren will be taking home recycling bags — which were provided by Butterfield and Vallis — and encouraging their families to join in the recycling initiative.

"Our goal is to raise awareness of the need to recycle to protect our Island and we are starting with our own school family by distributing 140 bags to every student and asking them to recycle all tin, aluminum and glass over the next week," said school principal Garth Thompson.

Peer leader of the Community Service Club Sasha Maybury added: "We want to see an increase in blue bags collected next week, Thursday, June 28th, 2007, in our community and we hope that families will continue to recycle for the rest of the year."

The students are to be young ambassadors for the environment.

"Bermudians should recycle because it keeps Bermuda looking good and clean," said eight-year-old Jache Butler.

Visiting the Island's recycling plant also made them aware of the importance of cleaning recyclable materials before putting them in the blue bags and they urged all residents to do so.

The students plan on continuing this effort next school year and they intend to hold a debate in the fall on why recycling should be mandatory.

"Help our community by recycling this week and every week" eight-year-old Mikle Dill urged.