Childcare Centre Makes Huge Contribution to Environmental Sustainability

Child’s Wonder Daycare centre in Papamoa has become Tauranga’s most forward thinking Early Childhood Education Centre.

The centre has changed from using disposable nappies during the day to using cloth nappies full time with the help of The Nappy Lady, Kate Meads who is supported by Tauranga City Council's Waste Minimisation programme.

This was a big step for centre manager Beverly Cruywagen and Jo Wensor the Head Teacher of the nursery section. Jo and Beverly worked closely with Kate, all of the centre families and nursery staff to make the change.

This involved detailing each step of the change over, so that they were able to be an integral part of this initiative.

The project has been really well received by families and many parents have in a very short space of time gone on to using cloth nappies at home with equal success.

‘There is very little effort required to wash the nappies. It is much less time consuming than what we originally thought.’ Says Beverly. ‘We also estimate that we have prevented over 500 nappies from going to landfill in a just a few short weeks.’

Despite the massive impact disposable nappies have on the environment there is an equally massive impact that disposables have on the family’s finances. We expect that our families will notice significant savings every week just through the centre using cloth nappies.

It doesn’t stop there though. Childs Wonder also employ a chef to cook wholesome meals for the children every day.

‘The children and the parents love checking out the menu board every day’ Says Beverly ‘And the baking smells drifting out of the kitchen are just delicious.’

All of this has resulted in there being a huge reduction in the amount of food waste and packaging the centre has to dispose of on a daily basis.

Also with a keen focus on nature their outdoors play area is a childs dream. They have animals like a bunny and sometimes laying hens, and real grass for the kids to play on. It may sound odd but many places nowadays have artificial grass.

The whole environmental concept of Childs Wonder is to teach the kids about nature, protect our environment and only leave a light environmental footprint.

Child’s Wonder and their families feel they have made the right decision and are delighted to be a part of this new initiative.

They even go as far as to encourage other centres in Tauranga to take up the initiative to do the same and they would gladly support these centres in making the change to Cloth Nappies and Sustainability.

-ENDS-

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