Environment Tobago

Principals and teachers of more than 25 schools along with representatives from the competition’s sponsors, Mrs. Neerupa Latchman and Mrs. Eileen Blackman and Mr. Rawle Frederick from the Solid Waste Management Company Limited were present at the launch held on Friday 22nd January at the Botanics Conference Facility.

The “Keep A Clean School Competition” is a programme for waste reduction and pollution prevention in Tobago’s schools and has received the full sanction by the Division of Education, Youth Affairs and Sport, Tobago House of Assembly.

Historically, the competition has been very successful throughout schools in Tobago arming teachers and students with knowledge and hands-on learning about waste reduction through the 3 R’s principle – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and more recently, the inclusion of Rethinking waste.

Students are required to identify, design, plan and implement solid waste reduction and management programmes within their school with a teacher acting as a facilitator. The project should involve positive actions by students that would contribute to a reduction in waste generation which would mean less waste heading to the Studley Park Landfill.

The specific objectives of the competition include:

• To increase awareness among students of the need to reduce solid waste pollution in Tobago.
• To improve student knowledge of ways to reduce solid waste generation and properly dispose of solid waste.
• To facilitate development of positive student attitudes for a pollution-free Tobago.
• To encourage students to take actions to reduce the generation of solid waste and to practice appropriate waste disposal habits.
• To take pride in their schools and communities.

This year the competition has a special focus on community action. This is to further develop a more holistic approach to solving environmental challenges and also to cultivate environmental stewards who are willing to share knowledge and embrace their community and are willing to act for change.

We commend all our schools which won last year, the projects were all testimony to the innovative and creative ways which can be used to address environmental problems. Our students and teachers clearly demonstrated the usefulness of this competition as a tool for learning. We hope that this year many more schools will participate and benefit from the competition.

We take this opportunity to sincerely thank BHP Billiton, Petrotrin and the National Lotteries Control Board for their unwavering support and making this our 10th Anniversary competition a possibility!
Schools can contact our office at 660-7462 or email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.