Classroom Recycling Center - Green Theme Day 6

Whether it's a standard or not, educating children about the why and how-to of recycling is SOOOO important... in my small, little, humble opinion.

You don't have to waste your money on recycling bins like I did. Just use copying paper bins and make it a class project to decorate them.

Some items to consider recycling in your classroom:

1) Glue sticks (I know Walmart will take them, but you may know of a place that will take them and pay you for them.)
2) Water bottles (Although I encourage kids to bring reusable ones, if they don't, they can feel good about recycling. We applauded two students the other day who recycled their water bottles.)
3) Crayons! Yes, I had no idea until my school's awesome Green Team leader Jennifer Hood (who will soon be posting here with me, yay!) shared this Crazy Crayon website with me that will take in mailed-in bits of crayons.
4) Paper. Check into your county's recycling center to see what kind of paper they will take. In my classroom, if a white sheet of paper has been used on both sides, they will put it in the large green bin you see in the picture. If it's only been used on one side, I have a tray where they will place it, so we can later use it to make books, write letters in Spanish, etc.
5) Obviously aluminum cans although I don't think we have too much of that in schools now.
6) I have recently come across the site TerraCycle  that looks pretty amazing and allows you to recycle items such as chip bags, sharpies, pens, etc. I definitely want to check more into this.

Anything else? Please let me know what I'm missing! A lot depends on your county.

If you'd like the two little circle posters above the recycling bin in Spanish or English, click on the image below.

 

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."