The first-ever Green Champions Challenge, a four-week community-focused environmental initiative aimed at boosting recycling across Saint Lucia, has named Carmen René Memorial Primary School its overall winner, capping off a successful campaign that mobilized more than 2,400 young eco-activists from five local primary schools.
Organized around a core mission of collecting recyclable electronic waste and aluminum cans, the competition concluded with an official prize-giving ceremony held Tuesday, where organizers distributed awards to all participating institutions. Carmen René Memorial Primary claimed the coveted Massy Stores Champions Award, securing the official title of 2026 Green Champions Winner alongside a prize package including EC$1,500 in Massy Stores gift vouchers and refreshments for the entire student body. Canon Laurie Anglican Primary School finished as first runner-up, taking home the LUCELEC Spark Award valued at EC$1,000 to support a school improvement project. The three remaining participating campuses — St Aloysius RC Boys School, Ave Maria Girls’ School, and Gordon and Walcott Methodist Memorial School — each received the SLASPA Green Seed Award of EC$333, funding earmarked for small on-campus environmental projects ranging from native plant gardens and dedicated recycling corners to campus tree-planting drives.
The Green Champions Challenge was coordinated by regional environmental non-profit Greening the Caribbean in partnership with the Saint Lucia Solid Waste Management Authority (SLSWMA), with additional institutional backing from the Department of Education and Digital Transformation. The initiative forms a key outreach component of the broader Integrated E-Waste Management Project, a long-term program focused on cutting the volume of electronic waste entering Saint Lucia’s Deglos Landfill and embedding a culture of responsible waste disposal across the island nation.
Launched on May 26, the 2026 challenge generated tangible environmental impact far beyond initial projections. By the end of the campaign, participating students had collectively gathered 2,460 individual electronic waste items and aluminum cans, all of which have been transported to Greening the Caribbean’s dedicated recycling facility in Odsan. Teams at the facility are currently sorting and processing the materials ahead of export to internationally certified recycling partners for proper reprocessing.
Organizers note that the campaign’s influence extended well beyond the walls of the five participating schools. Through student and family engagement, the initiative reached more than a dozen local communities, spreading awareness of responsible recycling practices to households across the region.
Wayne Neale, Chief Operations Officer at Greening the Caribbean, emphasized that the challenge’s success demonstrates the power of cross-sector collaboration to address pressing environmental issues. “No single organisation, no single agency, no single sector solves the waste challenge in Saint Lucia,” Neale explained. “Greening the Caribbean is pleased to work alongside the Saint Lucia Solid Waste Management Authority, the Ministry of Education, IDB Lab, and our private sector sponsors on this school-led campaign. When the public, private, and community sectors move in the same direction, this is what is possible.”
One of the most lasting legacies of the inaugural challenge will be ongoing access to recycling infrastructure for all participating schools. Each campus gets to keep its custom branded Green Champions collection bin, which will remain in use as a permanent recycling drop-off point for both students and local community members long after the competition concluded.
Greening the Caribbean has announced that the Green Champions Challenge will transition into an annual flagship event, with planning for the 2027 iteration set to get underway later this year. Sariah Best-Joseph, Communications and Stakeholder Lead at Greening the Caribbean, highlighted the critical leadership role young people played in the initiative’s success. “Every school in this Challenge has won something far greater than a prize. They have shown Saint Lucia that our children, supported by a strong coalition of partners and sponsors, can lead a national response to one of the region’s fastest-growing environmental challenges,” Best-Joseph said. “Ultimately, this was never just a competition; it is a school-community environmental coalition which now leads the way.”