Instruction

Selecting an Option

Print version of "Part 3: Projects": PDF • Word

Collecting Materials for Recycling
Collecting materials for recycling is a popular project. County or city litter control, clean community, or Department of Sanitation offices often can provide valuable advice about planning a recycling program.
Most recycling centers accept aluminum cans, glass bottles, newspapers, and some kinds of plastics. Some will also accept office paper or writing paper. To initiate a recycling project at your school, you and your students should first decide what items to collect and from whom they will be collected. Start small: your students can always expand their collection area later.
The students should deal with basic planning questions:
- What type of collection containers should we use?
- Where should the containers be placed?
- Are we going to locate them in the classrooms, the hallway, or the cafeteria?
- Whose permission will we need to have? How do we get that permission?
- Who will collect the containers?
- What will be done with the collected materials?
Sometimes school recycling projects falter because students expect the maintenance staff to take care of all the problems. Most maintenance crews are happy to work with recycling projects, if they are part of planning from the beginning. A recycling project should help the maintenance crew rather than cause extra work. Adult volunteers (parents or teachers) may be needed to drive collected materials to a recycling center.
Using Products Made from Recycled Materials
Many people think recycling is over when they drop off cans and bottles at the recycling center. Teachers can help students learn about the entire recycling process. What happens to recycled material? Students may know the importance of collecting materials for recycling, but they also need to know the importance of choosing products that companies make from recycled materials.
A project about using recycled materials in the community could be a possibility. For example, many school systems are using recycled paper in offices, classrooms, cafeterias, or even bathrooms. If their school is not using recycled paper, a class could follow the steps below to prepare a report for the principal and the purchasing office:
- Interview the purchasing office to find out what kinds of paper they are now using. Why did they choose those brands? How much do they cost?
- Find out about other school systems or other schools that use recycled paper. Why did they switch? How did they switch?
- Prepare a list of companies that sell recycled paper goods. Compare their prices to the amounts your school now spends on non-recycled items. Does paper made from recycled material cost more or less than other paper? Why? Why is cost an important factor for the school to consider?
- If students do a thorough job, they may show that recycled materials are comparable in quality and cost to non-recycled items. The class report may convince the purchasing office to switch to recycled materials.
Reusing Recycled Materials
Reusing is part of recycling. Reusing can mean using something again for the same purpose or finding a new use for it. For example, an empty juice bottle could be refilled with juice made from concentrate or used as a vase for flowers. A class project might sponsor a contest for the most inventive reuse of an item or have a sale of items students collected and made into new and useful objects. Reusing can also mean finding a new owner for an item. The class could collect clothes they no longer wear for donation to a charity that they choose after researching several in the locality.

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