School pupils are hoping to drum up support for recycling in North Tyneside.
Children from Kings Priory School, Tynemouth, are working on a project to make Japanese taiko drums using off-cuts of plastic drainage pipe donated by North Tyneside Council.
The project was dreamt up by music teacher, Guy Swinton, who got in touch with the council to see if they could supply the raw materials.
Happy to oblige, the council’s Environmental Sustainability Team got hold of some surplus drainage pipe from a local highways project for the children to use.
The Yard House, a craft beer shop in Tynemouth, also came up trumps by offering 15 unwanted plastic kegs for the school, which will be used by pupils in their Forest School area.
Guy Swinton said: “I saw this idea done elsewhere, with innovative methods being used to make taiko drums using materials such as rope and tarpaulin for the drum skins.
“I contacted the North Tyneside Music Education Hub on the off chance they could help to source some materials, and they put me in touch with the recycling team who came up with the disused pipes.
“This method of recycling is a great way to show young people how items can be used again and have a second life, and it’s fantastic from the school’s point of view because we are getting new music equipment for almost no cost.”
The school plans to re-use the materials over the coming months to make drums for the children to use during their lessons.
North Tyneside Council is also going to deliver a special assembly on recycling to promote its wash, squash and recycle campaign.
Paul Nelson, the Council’s Environmental Sustainability & Street Lighting Manager, said: “Protecting our environment is so important to us all and the council really appreciates the help of residents and businesses in supporting us to achieve this.
“We loved the innovative idea of using old drainage pipes to make music drums and we were of course more than happy to supply the pipes from one of our highways projects.
“We’re also delighted that The Yard House was able to find a project to reuse their plastic kegs and even better that the project was within the village at the local school. These are two great examples of resources being re-used rather than having to go through a recycling or disposal process.”