A GROUP of students could see their work promoting bin fire safety used as a blueprint around the country.
Last year, pupils from Weavers Schools in Wellingborough won a ‘Dragons’ Den’-style competition organized by the Northamptonshire Arson Task Force.
They competed against other schools in the town to produce a campaign to try and stop wheelie bin fires.
They designed bin stickers which will be sent out to households in the borough and they also made a DVD which will be shown to junior school children about to go to secondary school.
Arson Task Force officer and co-ordinator for the Police, Shaun Johnson said: “We are now supporting the winners, Weavers School, to roll out their DVD and their bin stickers promoting bin fire safety. The good news is we have had a lot of interest from other counties regarding this process and the way we worked with probably 3,000 young people in the town.
“The early indications show there has been a significant decrease in these problems and we hope this will continue.
“We are going to take this process to other counties and show them exactly what we have done and how we have done it so we are delighted with this and these new developments.”
He said Weavers School had developed a hard-hitting DVD which is designed to deflect would-be offenders away from this type of fire setting.
The pupils are being trained to take the DVD into junior schools and to talk to the young students about fire prevention and making this style of anti-social behaviour unacceptable
Mr Johnson added: “The reason we chose Wellingborough was when we did our analysis
Wellingborough had the worst wheelie bin fires per 1,000 head of population so it was appropriate we targeted this particular area.
“Together with that bin stickers will be distributed to adults living in Wellingborough and on the estates to promote better bin management and will see a reduction in this type of fire setting.
“Part of that campaign is to ask people to manage their refuse a lot better than they do at the moment.
“Rather than leaving their bins out all week they should store them away safely and bring them out on the day of collection.”
- To watch a video about this initiative go to www.northantshp.co.uk
