Recycling promotion and education
Waste Awareness Promotion
The following links show that there are many ways to spread the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ message across schools and to the wider community.
What else is available for your school?
Gregory Brother’s Healthy Living and Recycling Road Show for Primary Schools 2010
The message is simple; reduce, reuse and recycle.
Educating schools about recycling is extremely important. That is why Bridgend’s recycling department has teamed up with both the catering department and the Gregory Brothers to help promote recycling and healthy eating to school children.
The Gregory Brothers have taken their award winning theatrical road show to over 40 schools.
The Gregory Brothers, fronted by brothers Adrian and Paul have delivered the 45-minute show, with the help of their life-size mascot friends ‘Eco Eli’, the recycling elephant and Owain Owl.
The road show is designed to educate and promote healthy eating and recycling to the school children so that they are fully loaded with information which they can then pass onto their families.
There are many services available to help with reducing waste and improving recycling collections in your school. This resource pack will give you details on what can be offered by Bridgend County Borough Council to support your school and also the types of resources available from other organisations.
What is available from the Council:-
Composting
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Bridgend County Borough Council offers free compost bins to all local schools. If your school is starting a composting initiative then get in touch with the recycling team to arrange delivery of your compost bin. For more information and teaching resources on composting take a look at the following websites: |
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www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/schools/ |
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Recycling collections
Bridgend County Borough Council offers all local schools a free office paper recycling service. This scheme is a working partnership with the South West Wales Probation Service running the collection service. The scheme has expanded to include cardboard, plastics, tetra packs and ink cartridge. All the paper, cardboard, plastics and tetra paks are recycled by a local company and the ink cartridges are taken to the local charity KPC Youth. To join contact the recycling team who will arrange recycling bins and bags for the classroom together with a collection service.
Try these websites for tips on recycling and teaching resources –
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www.teachernet.gov.uk/teachingandlearning/library/talkingrubbish/ | |||
School talks and assemblies
Having an eco week or recycling day at your school, would you like an officer to visit your school to talk about recycling in Bridgend? Find out what happens to the refuse collected in Bridgend when it goes to the Materials and Energy Recovery Centre or what gets made out of the paper and glass recycled at the home. We can talk to individual classes, school assemblies or eco committees just contact the recycling team on Bridgend (01656) 643439. |
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What else is available for your school:-
Recycling mobile phones and ink cartridges
Recycling mobile phones and ink cartridges helps the environment by saving natural resources. An average inkjet cartridge requires over half a pint of oil to manufacture and over 70% of used cartridges end up in landfill every year. Mobile phones are made from many components and contain toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury and brominated flame retardants and should be disposed of responsibly.
There are many organisations that offer a free collection service for recycling mobile phones and ink cartridges. Many will support your school by paying money depending on the amounts collected proving an excellent way to raise extra funds. To check out the organisations offering this service and the resources they supply why not try -
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Recycling textiles and shoes
Recycling or reusing textiles helps the environment by not sending these materials to landfill. It is estimated that the people living in the UK 2,266,000 tonnes of new clothes and only 22% gets recycled. This means on average every person in the UK buys £600 of clothes each year and discards £400.
The Salvation Army offers a textile collection service for schools and this is an excellent way to raise extra funds. By taking part schools will also be supporting the work that the Salvation Army does in the UK
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For details follow try this website: www.wear2bank.co.uk
Teacher’s Bit
Ringo Ringleader Recycling Programme
For several years primary school children throughout Bridgend have been collecting the plastic ring carriers (Ringos) that are used to hold multiple food and drink cans together. Each year sees a record number of plastic Ringos brought into schools, with hundreds of thousands collected annually to be recycled back into Ringos, an excellent example of closed loop recycling.
Ringos are really easy to collect and by taking part pupils learn about saving natural resources and reducing the amount of waste going to landfill.
To find out more about the Ringo Ringleader Recycling Competition, contact the recycling team on Bridgend (01656) 643439.
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The Yellow Woods Challenge is going through a revamp and a brand new challenge was launched in the autumn 2010.
To keep up to date with the challenge and to use the teaching materials check out the website at www.yellow-woods.co.uk.
Fitting waste into the curriculum
There are lots of ways you can teach about waste whilst fulfilling other aspects of the curriculum. Here are just a few ideas.
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Environment |
Pollution, Landfill, Litter |
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Geography |
Resources, processes, location of resources and transport |
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History |
Dustbin contents over time, development of materials, changes in lifestyles |
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Science |
Materials/physical resources, manufacturing processes, compost/decay, habitats |
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Maths |
Calculations, school waste audit, quantities/ weights, formulas, graphs |
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Music |
Lyrics, songs, instruments made from recycled materials |
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English |
Poetry, drama, story telling, writing, debating |
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Art and Design and Technology |
Posters, murals, sculptures, fashion, recycling bins, recycled products |
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Religious/ Personal and Social Education |
Moral issues: poverty/exploitation/greed, lifestyles and environmental impacts, effect of production and waste on other cultures |
Activities
Why not download the following toolkits and try them out in your school.
When investigating packaging and their properties you will notice that there are many different recycling symbols. The following table gives a list of the symbols you may come across and what they mean.
Why not make a quiz and see if the children can guess what each symbol means.
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The Recycle Mark is a call for action. Please try and recycle whenever possible. |
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New packaging symbols are now starting to appear on some packaging. They help to identify how different parts of packaging can be recycled. |
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The Green Dot does NOT necessarily mean that the packaging can be recycled. It is a symbol used on packaging in many European countries and signifies that the producer has made a contribution towards the recycling of packaging. |
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Identifies the type of plastic e.g. PET and HDPE PETE e.g. Plastic Fizzy Drinks Bottles. The bottles you recycle could end up as carpet backing, sleeping bag insulation, containers, tool handles and even clothing such as Fleeces. HDPE e.g. plastic milk bottles. The bottles you recycle could end up as plastic bins, traffic cones, plastic containers etc. |
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Please dispose of glass bottles and jars in a bottle bank or use your glass kerbside collection. Glass can be recycled to make new glass bottles, aggregate for roads and concrete can be made using glass as an ingredient. The energy we save when we recycle one glass bottle is enough to light a light bulb for four hours. |
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Recyclable aluminium - aluminium is 100% recyclable. Aluminium is used in beverage cans, window frames, commuter trains, ships and planes. |
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Recyclable steel - steel can be recycled into things such as bicycles, paper clips, scissors or more cans |
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Mobius loop indicates that an object is capable of being recycled - not that the object has been recycled. |
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Mobius loop with a percentage symbol shows the percentage of recycled material contained in the product. |
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National Association of Paper Merchants mark, paper or board must be made from a minimum of 75% genuine waste paper and / or board fibre, no part of which should contain mill produced waste fibre. |
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The Forest Stewardship Council logo identifies products which contain wood from well managed forests independently certified in accordance with the rules of the FSC A.C |
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Tidyman - dispose of your waste carefully and thoughtfully. Do not litter. |
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If you see this symbol on an item it means that the packaging is suitable for home composting. |
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You will find this symbol on items such as batteries and electrical items. It means you shouldn't dispose of the item in your normal waste bin. You will be able to take the item to your local Civic Amenity Site to be recycled. |
Aims:
- Measure and record different types of waste in a specific environment
- To bring awareness of the types of waste produced by the school
- Consider disposal of waste and the alternatives; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
- To help children understand the relationship between people and the environment
- Uses mathematics and IT showing curriculum links to an aspect of Education for Sustainable Development
- Establish an action plan to reduce waste
- To provide monitoring data for Eco-schools
Activity A
Use the tables to help develop your action plan………….
Material |
Waste Bin |
Compost |
Recycle |
Paper |
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Cardboard |
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Plastic |
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Fruit peelings |
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Ink Cartridges |
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Mobile phones |
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Other…… |
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…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Have a look into a few rubbish bins at the end of the day. Did you find anything that could have been recycled?
What we found |
Consider action needed |
Have a look into a few recycling bins at the end of the day. Did you find anything that shouldn’t have been there?
What we found |
Consider action needed |
Think about recycling bins, do you think there are enough?
Are they in the right places?
Are they clearly labelled?
What about compost bins?
What we think |
Consider action needed |
Use the information gathered to develop your waste action plan. This can form part of your work for Eco Schools.
Don’t forget to think about reducing and reusing too……
Why not follow these tips…………….
- Always use both sides of a sheet of paper
- Make sure that teachers know how to use the photocopier and always print double sided
- Keep scrap paper to use for notes
- Grown out of you school uniform? Why not offer them to younger pupils – hold a uniform swap day
- Swap games amongst your friends to save buying new
Have a think……are there anymore tips you can add to the list?
Activity B
Getting started with your waste audit…………………..
This is best done by older pupils. They need to collect the bins from each classroom and office and label them before they start. They can then carry out the instructions on the Waste Audit sheet.
It is entirely up to the staff how far this is taken. It can be done just the once or it can be repeated each day for a week/on the same day of the week for a number of consecutive weeks.
The information collected can be used in an assembly where the pupils that did the waste audit can say what they did and why, as well as which teacher/ classroom throws away the most rubbish!!
This is also a useful way of linking in with waste and recycling at home. The pupils can monitor the number of black bags put out each week at their home over a period of time and look at ways to continue to reduce waste at home. It can also be used to see which families are using recycling and those that aren't and the pupils can then generate letters to encourage parents to use the kerbside scheme. This can also be done as a survey and the results of 'Who Recycles at Home' can be collected before and after any initiative to encourage parents to use the scheme.
This Waste Audit is only a guideline. It can be used as it is but it can be modified to suit your own school's needs.
You will need………………..
Protective gloves/ clothing
Newspaper / plastic bags
Weighing scales
Follow the instructions carefully and fill in the table below. Wear gloves at all times and be careful.
Firstly you need to weigh your full rubbish bag. The rubbish bag weighs ……………………………………………………………
Then empty the contents of the bag (you need to be wearing gloves!) onto newspaper and sort it out into types e.g. paper, plastic etc.
Then weigh each type of waste (use another plastic bag for this by putting the rubbish you want to weigh in side it).
Divide the rubbish into what can be recycled and what can't. Estimate the % of recyclable waste and non-recyclable rubbish.
I estimate there is………………………………..% recyclable waste and ……………………% non-recyclable waste in the rubbish bag
Using the weight of each type, add together the recyclable and non-recyclable rubbish.
The recycled waste weighs……………………………….and the non recycled waste weighs………………………………………………………………….
Draw graphs to show what you have found out about the contents of your rubbish bag.
Type of Waste |
Weight (grams) |
Waste Free Lunch
Aims:
- To measure and record the amounts of food wasted
- To bring awareness to the types of packaging used in lunch boxes
- Uses mathematics and IT showing curriculum links to an aspect of Education for Sustainable Development
- To link to the wider community by involving parents/ guardians
- To provide valuable data for Eco Schools
A waste free lunch is a challenge to everyone to produce as little rubbish as they possibly can from their lunch (this includes teachers!). You may want to introduce it in your school as a competition or a one off event when you are holding an Eco week or make it a regular event. Once you’ve done it once, why not introduce it into school trips as all pupils will be having a packed lunch, you can use the link at the end to download sheets on a waste free picnic.
Background
Waste isn't natural! In nature everything is used, in a natural system the waste from one organism becomes a resource for another in a continuous cycle. However, humans have been creating things that don’t rot, can’t be eaten, or used by other life-forms. The types of waste include packaging made from oil based plastics or metals. At the moment we humans take materials from the earth (using lots of energy), turn them into goods (using lots of energy), use them and then generally throw them away! We cannot keep doing this forever because it is becoming more and more difficult to find new resources and our rubbish tips are nearly full.
So when we pack lunches for school, we can make choices that help protect the environment by choosing reusable items, less disposable items and less packaging.
- How to get started
After lunch on a typical day collect, weigh and record all the waste from lunchboxes also include litter from the lunch hall. Measure or estimate each type of bin including refuse, recycling and composting. For children who have school dinners collect the leftovers in a separate bucket which can also be weighed (do not include the waste from the kitchen as this has not been wasted by children). You will need to get the catering staff on board to help you with this.
- Planning your ‘Waste Free Lunch’
- Start by introducing the concept of a waste free lunch by holding class discussions on packaging and healthy eating. Use some of the tips in this booklet to get you started.
- Split the class into groups to come up with some ideas of what to include in a ‘waste free lunch’ and what to avoid. Bring your own “wasteful” lunch into school to start discussions.
- Promote your ‘Waste Free Lunch’ day within the school and make sure everyone knows when it is and what to do. Design posters/ letters home and refer to it in assembly.
- Recap on recycling and composting facilities and make sure everyone knows which bins to use.
What to include in a ‘Waste Free Lunch’
Use these suggestions to let parents know what they can do to help reduce the packaging in their child’s lunch box making it healthier and better for the environment. It could mean that just one or two changes will help reduce waste and save money!
Pack…………….
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Avoid……………..
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- The ‘Challenge’
Use the following tables to help collate your data. Draw graphs to show what you found out about the lunches at your school and discuss your findings.
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What’s in my lunchbox? |
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Name:……………………………………………………
Class:……………………………………………………
Date:……………………………………………………
After you finished lunch today, what did you have left? Look in your lunchbox and write down what you see. Now think of a way you could reduce, reuse, recycle or compost your waste. If you can’t think of any put the waste in the rubbish bin.
In the final column write down some ideas on how you could replace the waste going into the rubbish bin with something more environmentally friendly. To get you started we have given you some examples below:
Describe item |
Reduce |
Reuse |
Recycle |
Compost |
Rubbish |
Could replace with |
Banana peel |
X |
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Juice carton |
X |
Reusable flask or a recyclable plastic bottle of juice | ||||
Bottled water |
x |
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Did the ‘Waste Free Lunch’ save waste and litter? Use the table below to determine whether the ‘Waste Free Lunch’ was a success |
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Before – a normal lunch |
Amount |
Waste Free Lunch day |
Amount |
Most common item |
Litter |
Litter |
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Recycling |
Recycling |
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Composting |
Composting |
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Rubbish |
Rubbish |
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Hot food left over’s |
Hot food left over’s |
- Follow up and outcomes
Present the results of the ‘Waste Free Lunch’ in an assembly letting everyone know how it went (and don’t forget to tell the parents). Present the findings in graphs and tables so you can discuss them if the ‘Waste Free Lunch’ made a difference.
Did most people eat a healthier lunch on that day? Using the before figures (normal lunch) calculate how much litter and waste could be prevented in a week, month or school year.
Carry out a spot check after approximately 6 weeks to see if improvements have been. The before waste free lunch results, waste free lunch results and then data from a spot check data will provide valuable information for your Eco School work.
Hopefully following a ‘Waste Free Lunch’, pupils will be able to easily recognise over packaged snack foods. They will also be able to identify items that are suitable for a waste free lunch and suggest ways of avoiding over packaged items and choosing healthy alternatives.
For further activities:
Why not try the link below that gives teachers advice on holding a waste free picnic:
www.recyclezone.org.uk/library/docs/Waste_Watch_waste-free%20picnic.pdf
Further activities/ lesson plans on packaging can be downloaded on:
http://www.incpen.org/pages/pv.asp?p=incpen48
- Last Updated: 16/02/2011
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