Pictured at the launch of the Bin It! workshops is Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Denis Naughten with pupils from Castlerea Community School, Castlerea, Co. Roscommon

A nationwide school campaign – Bin IT! – aimed at educating and raising student awareness of littering was launched by local Minster Denis Naughten in Castlerea Community School today.

Bin It! features an actor-led workshop visiting secondary schools across the participating local authority areas. The workshop is geared towards first year students and explores littering and social responsibility. This is the 10th year the campaign has toured Ireland and to date over 39,218 students have taken part, with 6,324 attending the workshop in 2015 alone.

Speaking at the launch, Minister Naughten said: “It is great to be able to launch this fantastic initiative in my local constituency. The Bin It!programme is an innovative and engaging way of educating children about proper litter disposal and the benefits of such behaviour. It has had great success to date and I wish the team all the best with the current campaign.”

Chairman of the Gum Litter Taskforce, Paul Kelly, said: “We are delighted to have the Minister with us to launch the 2016 Bin It! tour. The tour is very important to the overall goal of the campaign which is to change the behaviour of future generations when it comes to disposing of litter. The latest results of the attitude and awareness research we carry out to measure the impact of the campaign show that the highest number of people to date say they never drop gum which indicates that getting the message to children early is having a very positive effect.”

Bin It! is a key element of the Gum Litter Taskforce (GLT) education campaign. The campaign also includes outdoor poster, TV and online advertising which ran from May until August this year. The programme also has an accompanying website www.gumlittertaskforce.ie.

The workshop tour is supported by a website www.chewitbinit.com which includes games and quizzes for students, lesson plans, teachers’ notes, posters and activity cards to help integrate the theme of responsible litter disposal into the curriculum.

Schools can download a free copy of the ‘Bin it!’ programme materials by logging onto www.chewitbinit.com