By Environment Team member, Karen Rudin, AWC Zurich
Every parent knows that children are concrete and hands-on oriented. This makes recycling a perfect area for teaching kids some of the principles of environmental responsibility. The fact that parents are setting an example (we know you are conscientious about recycling!) is another plus. In addition, kids learn that everything in nature is cyclic, from biochemical cycles on up to the water cycle of precipitation, wind, evaporation and cloud formation, as well as the astronomical year, and recycling is a natural cycle lived consciously by human beings.
Recycling begins at home
Can you reuse it?
When we hear the word recycling we tend to think of separating disposables and taking them to collection centers. Before you take anything out of the house, however, ask yourself if you or your children can reuse it at home. Glass jars are excellent for storing food in the fridge or the cupboard and for housing all those myriad little items that kids love to collect. Tin cans hold paintbrushes and colored pencils. The kids can decorate the cans if they wish. The same is true for cardboard boxes. Yogurt cups are handy for picnic beverages, ice cream sticks are good for stirring paint (which can be stored in those glass jars), plastic egg cartons are good for mixing small quantities of paint, scraps of cloth make simple dolls’ clothes etc. etc. My grandson and I once spent a happy hour making animals from wine corks and toothpicks. And of course your old clothes are splendid for dressing up.
Art Project supplies
Save anything and everything that can be used in your child’s art projects. Paper printed on one side is fine for drawing and painting on the other side: at least one school in Winterthur uses old menus from a local restaurant for the students’ work sheets. Bits and pieces of cloth, foil, cardboard, cotton wool and plastic, combined with pictures cut from magazines and catalogs, reinvent themselves as collages. Papier-mâché is the very definition of recycled art (and kids love its messiness). Encourage your children to make homemade decorations for holidays and family occasions. Reuse gift-wrapping paper and ribbon or encourage your children to think up novel solutions for wrapping presents; one of my sons went in for newspaper tied with red yarn. Colored comics are good for presents for children; thin cloth is also effective.
Start a compost heap
Even if you live in an apartment, you can put dead flowers, tealeaves, fruit peelings and the like in a plastic container on the balcony. Children can see the processes that take place in the wild being repeated right outside their door. When the compost has decomposed, use it on your balcony plants, explaining that valuable materials that were in the original plants are being passed on to the new plants.
OK – you’re not going to be able to use absolutely everything at home – some things will have to go to the recycling center in your community. It’s easy to involve kids of all ages in this responsibility. When you divide up household jobs among your offspring, include such activities as tying up newspapers and cardboard and crushing cans (little ones enjoy stomping on them). Older kids can transport bottles and cans on their bikes.
You are a strand in the web of life
And now let’s get a bit philosophical. While walking with your kids in the woods or visiting the zoo, comment that people are the only animals that use wastebaskets and trash bags. Ask what animals do with waste – which should lead to the realization that nothing in nature is wasted, it is all reused. Recycled, if you will. When we recycle we are doing what nature does – just more consciously. Your children may also get the message that packaging contributes heavily to the quantity of rubbish (more than 50% in industrial countries). You are aiming at creating a mentality that respects materials and nature and that takes responsibility for our overwhelming and often negative effect on the environment. You are getting across the message that it doesn’t have to be negative; we can be a part of nature if we think and act creatively.
Resources
The following books to get you started are recommended or featured at one of the major on-line bookshops. There are many, many more available.
- Ecoart!: Earth-Friendly Art and Craft Experiences for 3-To 9-Year-Olds (Williamson Kids Can! Series) - by Laurie Carlson
- Garbage and Recycling (Young Discoverers: Environmental Facts and Experiments) - by Rosie Harlow (Author), Sally Morgan (Contributor)
- Recycle!: A Handbook for Kids - by Gail Gibbons
- Earth Book for Kids: Activities to Help Heal the Environment - by Linda Schwartz, Beverly Armstrong (Illustrator)
- Where Does the Garbage Go? - by Paul Showers (Author), Randy Chewning (Illustrator)
- The Great Trash Bash - by Loreen Leedy (Illustrator)
The following websites may prove helpful:
- for composting: www.compost-info-guide.com/
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for kids to learn about recycling; includes a game: www3.epa.gov/recyclecity
