The "Bin It!" programme is targeted at secondary school students. It aims to educate them about the consequences of gum litter, and encourages them to dispose of their used gum in a bin.

Bin It! Education Pack and Website
The education pack, called Bin It! contains teacher notes, activity cards, resource cards, posters and an interactive website www.chewitbinit.com

The Bin It! resource is aimed primarily at 12-13 year old students, and is designed to be taught mainly through the Civic Social and Political Education (CSPE) programme, but some elements may be applicable to Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Art and Geography.

Bin It! Actor Tour
As part of the Bin It! education campaign an actor tour has also been developed to compliment the resource pack. The tour involves actors performing an interactive role-play with the students encouraging the young people to think about their behaviour, take responsibility for their actions and correctly dispose of chewing gum. This approach to learning is appealing to the students and enables them to actively participate in the class, contributing their opinions and thoughts to the issue.

Bin It! Campaign History
The Gum Litter Taskforce launched its education campaign in December 2006 with the Bin It! resource pack being available to all secondary schools in Ireland. During the pilot campaign the actors toured 21 schools spreading the good gum disposal message to over 3,000 students.

As part of the launch of the first phase of the gum litter national campaign in 2007, 13 Local Authorities participating in the campaign actively took part in promoting the Schools' Programme. In total, 30 schools took part in the interactive role-play presentation which involved 4,000 students over 65 shows.

The second phase of the national education campaign was launched in April 2008. In total, 15 Local Authorities participated in the campaign and actively took part in the programme. Over a six week period, the tour visited 32 schools, conducting 58 workshops and reaching 3,360 students.

In 2009 the GLT campaign visited 46 schools with 4,700 students participating.

To date, over 14,000 students have taken part in the actor tour programme and over 500 schools around the country have requested a free Bin It! resource pack. This equates to a 55% take up in Irish Schools.

Between 14 November and 16 December 2011, "Bin It!" will again visit Irish secondary schools, focussing on 12 – 13 year olds. We will contact schools in mid-October to invite them to participate in this programme.

Bin It! Campaign Feedback
The campaign has received fantastic feedback from both students and teachers as demonstrated below:

Aura Matthey from Presentation Secondary School, County Waterford:
“Absolutely fabulous, best show I’ve ever seen in the school – and we’ve have had several. Very energetic and entertaining. Hope to see you back again next year.”

John Foley from Clonakilty Community College stated:
“The feedback from students and staff was positive and the message was transmitted in a very humorous but clear manner. I would like to thank you and all the actors involved in performing at our college and I would have no hesitation in recommending this workshop to colleagues and may even suggest to management that this workshop be repeated in the future.”

Diane Wright Kendrick, Monaghan Collegiate School:
“The drama team were excellent in the way they highlighted the problem of gum litter and getting the students so involved, participation is the key to success in these workshops and this team ensure a good fun learning experience was had by all.”

If you are a secondary school and would like to receive a free education resource pack you can apply directly through this website or the www.chewitbinit.com website. You can also contact Carla Timoney on 01 605 1575 or email carla.timoney@ibec.ie

Bin It! Pack Illustrations