Recycling

• Get your pupils to write and deliver an assembly on recycling plastic items from the
bathroom or plastic from around the home.
• Challenge your pupils to find out what plastic items they can recycle at home/ locally and
in the nearest household waste recycling facility.
• Make a display of pictures and items that have been made from recycled plastics.
• Get your eco-team to have a class or the whole school measure the amount of food
waste they generate at home over a week, consider how much this would be over a month
and a year. Ask children to use the Recycling Locator (www.recyclenow.com/localrecycling)
to find out if food waste can be collected in their local area. If they can recycle at
home, they can create a kitchen poster to remind the whole household to recycle all their
food waste.
• Get your pupils to create an assembly on why it is good to recycle food to launch a
competition for the best home food waste recycling reminder poster They can take home
and pin up their posters in their kitchens after judging day.
• Set up a Waste buster team and empower them to make sure there are no wrong items
in any classroom recycling bins. Set up a rota for emptying recycling points and checking
any items that are collected for returning, such as milk cartons, are put in the right bins and
placed ready for collection. The team should be able to award the best performing class of
the week with extra playtime, or some other good incentive for motivation. Have a regular
classroom recycling report at assemblies and celebrate the best performing class.
• If your school has received an Eco-Schools award or other accreditation for great
recycling, celebrate your success by telling other people such as parents and the local
press to promote your school ethics/eco-code.
• Invite your pupils to create a class quiz on [plastic, food, carton, electrical, metal or paper
& cardboard] recycling.
• Your pupils could create an assembly on [plastic, food waste, carton, electrical, metal or
paper & cardboard] recycling and create a quiz that tests the school on what facts they
have remembered from the assembly.
• Invite your pupils to write a play on [plastic, food, carton, electrical, metal or paper &
cardboard] recycling that will encourage people to recycle more. You can film it on a smart
phone, to show to the school on an eco-week
• Use wastepaper to make a big eye-catching collage or decoupage with the theme of
‘paper recycling to protect the planet’ and a suitable title. Put in a location parents are likely
to see it.
• Give your pupils the mission to ensure all the classrooms (and offices) have paper reuse
and recycling bins.
• Invite your pupils to create character finger puppets of the Waste buster characters
(activity sheets downloadable from www.resources.wastebuster.co.uk) and write a play
you can film on a smartphone, to show to the school in an assembly