Four West Waterford national schools secured their second Green Flags by An Taisce at a ceremony in Hotel Kilkenny on Tuesday. They included Aglish NS, Villierstown NS, Bunscoil Gleannsidheain, Cappoquin and Scoil Mhuire, Tallow.

This May will see the number of Irish schools flying the internationally recognised Green Flag exceed 3,000 as 1,156 schools attend Green-Schools Award ceremonies across the country.

The schools above successfully renewed their Green Flag under the themes of Energy, Water, Travel, Biodiversity, Global Citizenship and Climate Change.

Results from participating Irish schools have shown a waste reduction per capita of 7.65 kg per year; an electricity reduction per capita of 34 kWh per year; water use reduction of 1,005 litres per capita per year; and an approximate 1.27 million litres of fuel saved With combined overall financial savings in the region of €8 million for participating schools over the 2013-14 academic year.

Manager of the Green-Schools programme, Anthony Purcell congratulated all schools receiving the Green Flag this year.

“An Taisce is delighted to award its 3000th Green Flag as it represents how far the programme has come since we awarded our first Green Flag in 1998,” he said.