By Celine MacArthur

Qatar Academy Senior School has been recycling paper for over a year now. Following this success, it was decided to start a plastic recycling campaign. In order to kick-start the campaign, the senior school recycling team got together with the PTA and the idea of the “Plastic Mountain” was born.


For one week in April, students from Pre 3 to Grade 11 brought in plastic bottles to create Qatar Academy’s first plastic mountain. We had hoped for a good response but were amazed with the final result! As the week rolled on, the enthusiasm for recycling grew, the competition between classes and grades became intense – the whole of Doha was been trailed for more and more plastic bottles to recycle …

As the Quackfest, Qatar Academy’s charity fun day, arrived, all the bottles from the Senior and Primary/ECE Schools were combined. The final mountain measured 34, 121 bottles!  Mr. Salih from Friends of the Environment Centre presented an award to our recycling student leaders Chris Bani, Al Anoud Al Thani and Noura Al Kabbi. The bottles were later collected and recycled by ‘Doha Plastic’, a plastic recycling company in Doha.  After such a great jumpstart, the new plastic recycling program, along with our paper program, continues to grow at Qatar Academy.