St Gregory’s School students were let loose with cans of spray paint in Stratford - with amazing results thanks to Budget Waste

Letting children loose with cans of spray paint in Stratford town centre may not sound like a sensible idea.

But on Friday Year 6 pupils from St Gregory’s School created some brilliantly eye-popping ‘eco art’ on four skips on Waterside in a collaboration with Budget Waste.

The Honeybourne-based skip hire and waste management company is keen to work with schools to help with learning about waste and sustainability.

When the Herald arrived at the Bancroft, the four teams of pupils, aged 10 and 11, were flourishing spray paint cans with gusto and clearly having a whale of a time making their designs come alive.

Marketing manager Ethan Blackman was on hand to see to demands for fresh paint supplies and answer the questions from the curious young artists.

Ethan told the Herald: “A big part of our ethos is sustainability and recycling, and we wanted to showcase how young voices are contributing to conversations around waste, recycling and the environment.

“I was at the school yesterday and talked to them about what it means to be sustainable. We discussed fossil fuels, renewable energy, the importance of recycling, and the damage done by landfill. Then we tasked them with designing a skip that pushes those messages across.”

Ethan added: “It’s really heartwarming to see how engaged the pupils are and what they’ve done. We’ll be keeping their colourful skips in the yard at Honeybourne.”

Also surveying the riotous fun being had by the youngsters was class teacher Liz Tooze.

“They’re delighted because we had SATs exams this week – they finished yesterday, and then Ethan came in and worked though their designs with them,” she told the Herald. “You can see how excited they are – they’ve never had an opportunity like this or used spray paint before, and they are loving it.

“Some are being meticulous, others really abstract – they are all going for it, creating really bright and colorful designs that get that message across of being sustainable, which links into so much of what we do in class. With this generation, if we can get that message across early enough it will really help.”

Last words go to the young St Greg’s spray-painters who chatted excitedly about their endeavours, but insisted that we mention their names. So this is from Katie, Archie, Peter, Thomas, Adam, Harry, Martha and Carrie: “It was really enjoyable and we got to bring out our creative side. We’d love to do it again. We want to get the message across about the world – it’s up to our generation to save the planet.”

And a final profound comment on saving the planet from one of the boys: “If not now then when?”