A school in St Albans switched off its lights to support National Waste Week.

The ‘switch off’ event was held at St Albans Girls’ School, Sandridgebury Lane, on Wednesday, March 13, to teach pupils about recycling and conserving energy.

Students and teachers were encouraged to turn off lights, computer monitors and unused plug sockets throughout the day.

Paul Lerwill, business manager at the school, said: "The issue of recycling has always been important in the school.

"This year we decided to move forward, and get involved with the waste week campaign to go that step further."

Litter awareness assemblies, displays in classrooms and the launch of a paper recycling scheme took place during the day.

Mr Lerwill said: "Switching off for one day is fantastic, but we want the pupils to move forward with this idea.

"All these little things we did during the week should be done all the time."

The waste week campaign is set up by The Pod and EDF Energy and focuses on raising awareness of energy saving and global environmental issues.

Robyn Thorn, education programme manager at EDF Energy said: "Over 3000 schools have taken part in the campaign this year and it has been very well received.

"The whole idea of the project is to get children thinking in a different way and realising that something they might think is waste could potentially be reused."

The all-girls school has previously won Bronze and Silver Eco-Schools awards as part of the Eco-School programme, and are hoping that their efforts during waste week will help them obtain the final Green Flag award.