MONASH Primary School won $250 in this year’s Rubbish Free Lunch and Litter Free Grounds Challenge.

Education and Training Minister Lynne Kosky congratulated the school for its innovative approach to reducing rubbish.

Sponsored by EcoRecycle, the initiative of the Department of Education and Training is open to all schools with $10,500 in prizemoney to be awarded.

Due to the challenge, the amount of rubbish collected in the Rubbish Free Lunch category fell by 48% and by 49% in the Litter Free Grounds category.

More than 26,600 Victorian students took part in the challenge which weighed the amount of lunch rubbish and litter left in the school on a designated day.

This was compared to the rubbish generated on a reference day two weeks earlier.

On the reference day, schools collected more than 1.5 tonnes of rubbish from lunches and 317.177kg from school grounds.