Staff and students at elementary school students in Cape Breton have been recognized with an award for making their school more environmentally friendly.

What started as a group of students upset over garbage on their school grounds has turned into provincial recognition for bettering the environment.

“We’ve been a little overwhelmed,” says Kelly McNenly, the principal at Tompkins Elementary in Reserve Mines, N.S. “We started with a little project to try to do something to improve the environment.”

That little project turned into the Green Team. Students and staff donned green T-shirts and took a pledge to reduce the amount of waste in their school.

“It feels great to say we reduced 40 per cent of garbage in our school,” says Grade 6 student Dawson McNeil. “We were able to reach our goal. We still want to get it down to zero garbage. Hopefully we will get that done this year.”

The achievement has not gone unnoticed. Tompkins Elementary was rewarded with the School of the Year award at a ceremony in Halifax during the 16th annual Mobius Awards of Environmental Excellence.

When the campaign to reduce waste began, students found 76 per cent of their garbage was going into the landfill. By the time they finished, they had that number down to 32 per cent.

Shirley Boutilier of CBRM Solid Waste nominated the school for the award after hearing about their accomplishment.

“They’re not just a school full of individuals, they’re a group,” says Boutilier. “They attack things as a group and I think they attacked recycling, compost, litter as a group.”

The award has been placed proudly at the school’s main entrance and is made of 100 per cent recyclable goods.

“It means a lot that we accomplished something and never give up, because something good always comes from cleaning the environment,” says Grade 6 student Leia O’Brien.

“Every day, the pride that I have in this school as a principal, in one way or another, whether it’s the behavior of the students, or them taking initiative like this, whether it’s the kind way they treat each other, I can tell you, this is the icing on the cake and there’s no principal that is any prouder,” says McNenly.

The school’s next project will be looking at ways to reduce energy use.

With files from CTV's Kyle Moore