School Recycling Project ~ Ideas ~ How?

Question

Hi ~ My daughter is 9 1/2 year old, Fourth Grader and she has to come up with a "How to become Green" project. I have thought of a mobile of cans/lids etc. But I think we need to come up with something more unique. It can invole anything that some one who is age 9 could come up with. Please help.

Answer 1

Recycle plastic shopping bags for cash.  

$1 per lb.  I did this with kids/scouts in Massachusetts thru Phoenix Recycling. We rolled them into "logs" of 20-30 per bundle, per instructions and stuffed them into Phoenix postage-paid bags designed to hold up to 50 lbs, and mailed them to the recycler (division of a bag manufacturer).  Don't know if the 'bags-for-cash' program is still around.  It's a lot of work.

Answer 2

HI!  

One thing your child can do at age 9 1/2 is to research landfills and how computers and electronics are filling them up in the US and overseas.  There are lots of chemicals in electronics from lead, mercury, and copper to other deadly chemicals.  

I propose that she go and talk to her principal about this issue and ask where the old electronics of the school are being sent?  For instance -- are they taking up space in a storage room or even a classroom?  

I can help--I'm in Canton and I am into recycling electronics for FREE and if she can talk to the school we will take the electronics for FREE, and dispose of them in an environmentally friendly manner.  Often times we dismantle the products for scrap and that scrap is used to make new electronics or in some rare cases we are able to refurbish the electronic and then we reuse it in schools and other non-profits in communities like yours.  

Thanks for your time and feel free to check out our site at www.recyclingneeds.com or contact me directly at my office 903-714-5369.  

Thanks,

Dee Smith

Answer 3

Let your daughter figure this one out, the problem I see with parents is they are trying to their kids projects, thus the kid gets nothing from it.

Answer 4

Why not send her in with a bin bag full of 'rubbish' (trash, garbage as they say in the US), and get her to sort it in the class.  For example a newspaper, a glass bottle, a plastic bottle, a tin can and a banana skin.

She then says to the class what happens to each of them. They can either go to landfill or to a recycling centre. Most items get reprocessed to the same thing, but plastic bottles become heavy duty plastic for road signs etc.

The banana skin that goes into the compost and becomes fertiliser.

Alternatively, get your daughter to do her own homework!

Answer 5

I recently did something very fun to promote recycling in my school, although it didn't involve recycling anything. I took all of the recycling bins I could find, emptied them, and stacked them up into a castle publically in the main area of the school.

Answer 6

I know another school had a green projects of getting their parents, family, and friends to cancel their unwanted catalogs. One company you could go through is http://www.catalogchoice.org/

In the meantime you can have a contest to see what class or grade can collect the most catalogs, magazines etc and give away some sort of prize.

Another school had an art project to create art out of recyclable products already found around their house.

Hope this helps!

N.

http://badhuman.wordpress.com

Answer 7

Hi.

I discovered greenschoolproject.com and implemented in my daughter's school this year as an officer of the parent's organization. Its basically an inkjet recycling program that earns the school money while helping the environment. They offer boxes and on their website there are lesson plans. Maybe this could be something that your daughter can implement in her school? Or another idea would be to start a simple recycling initiative in her classroom. How much paper is thrown out every day? Is the paper recyclable - I think yes :). She could bring in boxes and teach the younger grades the importance of recycling.

TM

Answer 8

My  8 yr. old daughter had a similar project last year and we "recycled" a pair of her old jeans.  They still fit, but were too short  (and had a hole in the knee) so we cut them off to make shorts.  Then with the scraps we made a matching purse for her and a skirt for her doll.  We used almost all of the original jeans and it was different from the rest of the projects.

Answer 9

i saw your post and was doing some research for the school i work at...on top of doing an actual project like the mobiel you had in mind...what about getting in touch with something and making her school an "eco-school". i havent read too much about it yet but was looking into like i said for the kids at my school...i think it would really awesome if a student did the research, and with a parents help, got their school involved in a recycling program of some sort...that way she would be doing a project that was "on-going". the website i am looking at right now is http://www.biggreenswitch.co.uk/at_schoo...

maybe this will help, maybe not! good luck tho!!!!!