Circularity: the key to achieving a more sustainable world?

When addressing the issues around sustainable consumption, we need to consider sustainable sources of food, to minimise new pollutants, whilst consciously avoiding the creation of other forms of waste too!

It isn’t new news that the transportation of food has a notoriously high carbon price tag. Shocking statistics about the carbon footprint that it leaves behind have placed a greater emphasis on sourcing food locally – and for the sixth-form kitchen, it doesn’t get any more local than the three apple trees in our very own backyard.

This season saw the apple trees thrive, bearing tons of fresh, ripe fruit, ready to pick in September. Unfortunately, students and staff, engrossed in busy schedules hadn’t noticed the rich resource mere metres away. The number of apples on the trees were clearly enough for the sixth form kitchen, yet the apples were just dropping to the ground, getting damaged and wasted.

At this point, the sustainability committee decided to step in, harvest the apples, and implement the concept of circularity - a simple, natural system of regeneration to prevent the creation of waste. Circularity creates a cyclical system rather than a linear one, where each stage feeds into the next and eventually the final stage will feed into the start of a new cycle. The apples, which would have ended up in the bin, would now become a part of our meals, and the only actual waste generated, such as apple cores, would be repurposed as fertiliser to grow more trees.

The concept was doubly effective - in providing pesticide-free organic apples and minimising waste. From growth and harvesting to sales and consumption, there are hundreds of sustainability concerns. Instead, our apples eliminated the need for the school to buy fruit and produce food miles. The end result? Seasonal desserts for the entire Sixth Form and undoubtedly, sustainability from “farm to fork”.