Our Boarding students have been learning new ‘green’ skills thanks to Somerset Council and its waste collections contractor SUEZ recycling and recovery UK.

Team Repair, a company committed to reducing electronic waste and increasing STEM career take up, will be running a 12-week course at five of the county’s schools.

The lessons give students hands-on experience learning repair skills, teaching them to carefully take the item apart, diagnose the fault, understand the components and fix it to end up with a working gadget.

In the process they hope to reduce electronic waste while engaging young people with the STEM subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Students will learn to repair a microscope, games console, torch and a remote-control car and explore the science behind the gadgets.

Our boarding students have been the first to take on the new challenge, and a further four schools in Somerset, and one Somerset Youth Group, will also benefit from a twelve-week Team Repair sponsorship.

The Team Repair sessions are being funded from the SW:EEP fund. This uses ring-fenced income from the sale of recyclable materials to support projects that reduce waste and benefit the community.

Electronic waste is one of the largest contributors to climate change. Every year 103,000 tonnes of e-waste is thrown away in the UK – the equivalent to 8.5 million microwaves.

Team Repair are a multi award winning start-up company on a mission to increase STEM career uptake and tackle the e-waste crisis.

Cllr Richard Wilkins, Executive Member for Transport and Waste Services, said: “Buying new and throwing away things that no longer work massively adds to the climate crisis. The things we use everyday are filled with valuable materials, including gold and copper, loving our things for longer stops this from going to waste.

“The opportunity to get a hands-on experience to learn repair skills and get young people interested in STEM is a really positive way to tackle the e-waste issue.”

Lily Morton, Senior Community Liaison Manager at SUEZ added: “We are not only committed to managing waste but also reducing it at its source. By sponsoring schools to take part in the brilliant Team Repair programme, we hope that we are providing the opportunity for children to leave school with practical repair and green skills.

“There’s a need for more green skills in the waste sector. Projects like this help to embed them at a young age.”

Laura Turnbull, Senior House Parent, Sexey’s School said: “The idea of receiving a broken gadget, learning new skills to fix it and then putting the gadget to use has been really exciting for our boarders. Team Repair has helped our boarders to learn some valuable fixing skills and a lot of patience.”

ENDS

About the Somerset Council and SUEZ SW:EEP fund
The joint SW:EEP fund, between Somerset Council and SUEZ, uses ring-fenced income from the sale of recyclable materials. The money is designated for the benefit of the community.

The partnership backs projects with aims that take action on climate change, behaviour change and positive community support (for example, groups who work to reduce food waste in their local communities).