School Trip Around Sustainability
On the 6th March 2025, 7 classes of the 8th grade from Tondela, Campo de Besteiros and Caramulo, and 10 teachers went on a school trip within the municipality of Tondela to visit sites related to sustainability.
We left school in two different buses around 9 a.m. and the two groups headed to different sites.
One of them was Interecycling (pic.1) a centre of reception, disassemble and recycling of what they call “monsters” (big domestic appliances). Here we listened to a lecture and saw a short video explaining how they recycle domestic appliances, such as fridges, TV sets, washing machines. They disassemble them into small parts and sort them out according to their components. Then we visited a room where they display examples of disassembled appliances to be reused later (pic. 2). We didn’t go visit the disassembling premisses because it was very noisy.
Our next stop was the ETAR, a wastewater treatment centre. There we saw a huge tank with the water from our toilets and sinks and two engineers explained us how they treat that water to be reused in our houses or returned to nature. (pic. 3).
Next to the ETAR there was Ecocentro, an open space with huge containers to dump different types of solid waste. The waste was sorted out according to its composition. There were dumpsters with toys, mattresses, buckets, car batteries, etc. (pic. 4)
After that, it was lunch time, so our drivers took us to a gym pavilion in Santiago the Besteiros where students ate the food their families had prepared. During this break we chatted, socialized and many students played football.
In the afternoon we visited Ecobeirão where we learned about recycling and the preservation of natural beauty. After watching a short video, we spent around 30 minutes touring around the premisses by bus and an engineer guided us through the different stages of the recycling process from sorting out and managing the trash to transport it in trucks they call “Galeras” to specific factories for later to be reused. (pic. 5). It was interesting to see trash that could be ours! Outside we also saw some cute deer.
It was a different day where we learned about processes that we aren’t usually aware of but that make our daily lives clean and pleasant and protect the environment at the same time.
Written by 8th grade students, classes C, D and E