The CDS Vic Excellence awards category recognises one primary and one secondary school. Congratulations to our 2026 winners, Pleasant Street Primary and Lilydale Heights College!
All across Victoria, schools of all sizes have embraced Victoria’s Container Deposit Scheme. We like to recognise their efforts wherever we can, but once a year, we get a special opportunity to celebrate with the ResourceSmart Schools Awards.
Our CDS Vic Excellence category awards one primary and one secondary school, and for 2026, we’d like to congratulate Pleasant Street Primary and Lilydale Heights College!
Pleasant Street Primary sits next to Lake Wendouree in Ballarat. Their Pleasant Street Bees green team is made up of 20 students from year 3-6, with three times that many applying each year. CDS Vic collections have been truly embedded into school life.
Judges praised the school’s partnerships internally and externally – they work with a local depot which provides a collection service – and the high level of student involvement.
Congratulations also to Tecoma Primary School and Newstead Primary School, which were the runners-up in the primary school category.
Lilydale Heights College students took a hands-on approach to their CDS Vic collections. To keep other rubbish out of their bins, they customised wheelie bins with chained lids and one-way openings. They also added drainage holes and on-theme artwork to help remind the school community why the scheme is so important. Designs feature each Victoria’s most endangered animals.
Judges were thoroughly impressed by this, as well as the students’ work on bin placement and behaviour change. Congratulations to Lilydale, and to our runners-up, Kew High School and Brentwood Secondary School.
Find out more
If your school would like to get involved with CDS Vic, and maybe even enter for this award next year, we have resources to help.
