Recycling For Kids
It’s ‘Our World’ we all need to take care of it!
Did you know?
It’s ‘Our World’ we all need to take care of it!
Did you know?
The average household in the UK creates over a ton of waste each year, which is about the weight of a small car. ALSO,
The average person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every 7 weeks!
Other countries recycle a lot more than we do. Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany recycle around 60% of their waste, compared with our rate of around 45%.
In the U.S., at least 10 million tons of newspapers are put into the trash each year. Around 75,000 trees are required just to produce one edition of the Sunday New York Times.
Facts like these highlight the need for more people to make use of the recycling center instead of putting everything into the trash bin.
TOP 10 ITEMS THAT SHOULD ALWAYS BE RECYCLED
1. Newspapers
Newspapers are one of the easiest materials to recycle. Doing so can help to save up to 60 percent of the energy required to make brand-new newsprint.
2. Mixed Paper
According to the EPA, the paper comprises a third of all municipal waste in the U.S. It is also one of the easiest materials to recycle. From old documents to junk mail and everything in between, make sure your waste paper ends up at the recycle center.
3. Glossy Magazines and Ads
Magazines can also be recycled, even the full color highly glossy variety. This applies to mailed coupon flyers and advertisements as well.
4. Cardboard
Sending one ton of cardboard to the recycling center can save over 9 cubic yards of landfill space and 24 percent of the energy required to make new cardboard.
5. Paperboard
The thin cardboard used for shoeboxes, product boxes, and similar containers is also recyclable. Be sure to flatten this as well in order to save space in the recycling bin.
6. Plastic Drink Bottles
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic is used for water, soda, and juice bottles. In the U.S., about 2.5 million plastic bottles are thrown away every hour. Recycling them helps the environment tremendously.
7. Plastic Product Bottles
Thicker plastic bottles used for shampoo, detergent, and similar items can also be recycled. These bottles should be rinsed clean, and their plastic tops removed and discarded.
8. Aluminum Cans
Aluminum retains its properties indefinitely, so it is an excellent candidate for recycling. Doing so requires 95 percent less energy than making brand-new cans.
It lowers the urgency for mining new aluminum, which in turn helps to preserve the environment.
9. Steel Cans
Steel (tin) cans are still used for many canned products including fruits, vegetables, soups, and coffee. They can also be recycled. Be sure to rinse them out before recycling them.
10. Glass Containers
Glass containers used in food and beverage packaging are 100 percent recyclable. They can be substituted for up to 95 percent of raw materials when new glass products are being made, making glass recycling highly friendly to the environment.
The more materials that can be sent to the recycling center, the better the environment can be. These 10 items should always be recycled from both your home and your business. When in doubt, check with your local municipality to verify how and where these items should be recycled.
Recycling is a learning experience for the future:
There is increasing awareness about environmental sustainability among consumers and businesses.
And this awareness is also growing when it comes to paper and printing. That’s why we thought that a closer look at the recycling process might be interesting to our kids to be environmentally conscious and try to make green choices in the future.
What is recycling, and why is it important?
Maybe that’s the first question kids will ask when they are faced with this topic before they bring themselves to the more detailed information related to how recycling is done.
Teaching children to care for the environment is a learning experience that is an influential part of growing up. It gives them skills in respect, empathy,
patience, responsibility, and teaches them about consequences. But it also teaches them valuable lessons about sustainability and how we want to leave the world for future generations.
Showing children how to recycle properly is like passing the baton to them for a cleaner and brighter future.
Waste is usually divided into different categories to be sorted out for the recycling phase; paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum, and every single type goes through a different recycling process to bring it back into a new product that we can use again.
Recyclables can be made into crafts, jewelers, paint pots, and papier-Mache. With that in mind, kids also learn that when they recycle newspapers, the paper will turn back into newspapers, and bottles into other bottles.
When young people know that the things, they use can become other useful things, it can give them a better incentive to want to recycle.
Who wouldn’t want to be a part of the cycle of things?
Once kids learn to recycle at home, they can spread the word and make sure people are sorting recyclables at school, at their sports clubs, and with their friends.
A sustainable future depends on what we do today, and good habits can become second nature.
Our kids must be involved by:
• Setting recycling chores
• They can be in charge of bringing reusable shopping bags to stores
• They can sort the recycling things
• Decorate bins in different colors for each recycling category
• have arts and craft time with recycled materials
• They can read books about recycling that are appropriate for their age
Finally, learning by example is one of the most important ways to discover. When parents, teachers, and leaders show good habits to children,
they pick them up and imitate them. Showing young people how important it is to look after the environment, and recycle by doing it yourself is the key to a sustainable future and creating kids with a healthy attitude about our world.
The skills kids learn by recycling will create a sustainable world for them to live in. They’ll have a greater appreciation for the way things work, and a better understanding of our precious ecosystem.
We mention that recycling is not a new topic, it has an old history.
Ancient Recycling
The first recorded use of recycled paper was in 9th century Japan. Ancient Japanese people began recycling paper almost as soon as they learned how to produce it and recycling became part of paper production and consumption.
Japanese culture generally treats recycled paper as being more precious than new and recycled paper was often used in paintings and poetry. In the 12th century,
a case was recorded of an emperor’s wife: after the emperor died, she recycled all the poems and letters she received from him and wrote a sutra on the recycled paper to wish peace upon his soul.
We can do more! Learning Mole has worked hard with Bryson recycling to create educational videos and resources that will help parents, schools, children, councils, in fact, the whole community to see the importance of recycling and hopefully encourage them to recycle more.
We hope you enjoy these resources and feel free to email us with more suggestions – by working together we really can make the world a better place!
