Mini Lesson Plan: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Saving the planet one R at a time
Recycling may seem like a modern concept that was introduced a couple of decades ago. But did you know that people have been recycling for thousands of years? In ancient civilisations, ink used for writing was made out of soot from burning wood or oil!
In this Mini Lesson Plan, we’re diving headfirst into a landfill to learn more about the trash we generate!
Activity 1: Twinkle Trails Episode 25 — Recycling
What exactly happens to waste after it is thrown into rubbish bins? Follow Miss Twinkle and class to find out!
Mini Recap: What are the 3Rs?
Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle are three practices that we can observe to lessen the amount of trash we produce. Collectively, they’re given the catchy nickname, 3Rs! Can you think of any examples of trash that your kids produce? (Examples include sweet wrappers, juice boxes/bottles, and leftover craft paper.)
Food for Thought: What’s in our trash?
We throw all of our waste right into a bin without a second thought. Most of the time, the things that we throw out can be recycled! This activity will help you be more aware of your actions and realise how much waste goes to waste on a daily basis!
Reducing is about minimising the amount of waste we produce in our everyday activities.
We can exercise reducing our waste by:
- Purchasing and using less items. For example, bringing our own carrier bags when we go shopping can help to reduce the number of plastic bags used!
- Passing on leftovers to someone who needs it. Let’s say that you bought too much paint. Once you’re done with your painting, you can give your leftover paint to a friend instead of throwing it away! #sharingiscaring
Reusing is about looking for ways to use materials again. Glass containers, plastic bottles, and cloth bags are all reusable materials. You can use these items over and over to store food, stationery, or anything you can think of! Next time you go grocery shopping, look in your cart and try to think of ways to reuse all of the containers in it!
Did You Know?
More than 2.5 billion single-use cotton swabs are thrown away each day in the USA alone, but there are people working on this problem. Companies like LastSwab provide reusable cotton swabs so that people have an alternative, more eco-friendly option. In fact, a little Google search would show us that there are many alternatives to the items we use every day and throw after just one use!
Recycling is about converting waste into materials that can be reused — so don’t be so quick to throw everything in the trash!
It’s a good habit to separate recyclable materials from your trash and place them into designated recycling or compost bins.
Examples of recyclable materials include newspapers and metal cans. Read more about what you can recycle and how!
Doesn’t this sound easy? Incorporating the 3Rs into our lives is basically just a game of sorting unwanted items! As a reward for playing this game, you get to to help clean up our planet!
Activity: Mini Recycling Center
Set up this recycling station in your home or classroom to encourage the kids to be mindful of their trash. Find a recycling centre near you so that the items collected can be properly recycled!
Activity: Movie Night!
WALL-E is a Disney movie that shows us the distant, but not so unrealistic, consequences of not being careful of our rubbish. After Earth is abandoned because it has become covered in trash, WALL-E is a little robot left to clean up the mess.
If you have yet to watch this film, we highly recommend a movie night in with the kids ! Don’t forget the popcorn!
Activity 2: How Do Re-cycled Materials Re-enter our lives?
With all this talk about recycling, you may be wondering…what exactly happens to recycled items? For starters, we can talk about the four most commonly recycled materials: paper, plastic, glass and metal.
Paper
Plastic
Glass
Metal
Read more about how materials are recycled from credible environmental agencies!
Chances are, you already have items made from recycled materials in your possession in all shapes and sizes! The following are just some of many examples.
Activity: Making paper from recycled materials
While most recycling is done in recycling factories, the process itself doesn’t require complex machinery! For this activity, we’re going to make recycled paper from cardboard egg cartons! By ourselves!
Fun Fact: The paper we write on is made in a very similar way. Wood from trees is ground into pulp (pulp is a ‘watery soup’ of wood fibres mixed with water). The pulp is then sprayed onto mesh screens which go through heat rollers to squeeze all the water out.
Activity 3: Nature’s Very Own Recyclers
Most animals live in co-dependant ecosystems, taking only what is needed and producing as little waste as possible. The only time to set the bar low is for limbo — these animals take recycling to a whole other level.
1) Birds
As one of the most adaptable species to date, birds have become well-accustomed to the ever-growing urban landscape. For nest-building materials, birds will use anything they can get their beaks on from twigs to paper clips to fur balls.
They’re highly innovative too! For egg-sample (Get it? Because birds lay eggs?), Bowerbirds, from New Guinea and Australia, have a very unique courtship behaviour. The males will build a structure and carefully decorate it with colour-coordinated items (many blue bottle caps in the right picture) that they think the females will find most attractive.
Activity: Build-a-Nest
Take a feather out of the Bowerbirds’ book and add a little dazzle to your Bird Nest Craft! Stick colour co-ordinated items on the nest; you can use string, cotton wool, buttons, and any other recycled material you see fit!
2) Hermit Crabs
In the eyes of a hermit crab, the perfect beach would be littered with an abundant number of shells. Since the shell of the hermit crab doesn’t grow with its body, the crab must start looking for a new home when it begins to get bigger. In the process, it will shed its current shell for a smaller hermit crab to use. That way, all the shells found on beaches are constantly being recycled!
3) Octopods
Since octopods/octopuses (mystery solved!) don’t have bones, they can fit into extremely small spaces. These creatures scavenge the seabed looking for random debris to hide in for safety. They have been found hiding in plastic bottles, empty coconut shells and large shells.
Activity: Socktopus Craft
With a pair of cute socks, some glue, string, and a pair of scissors you can make yourself the cutest little octopus!
4) Dung beetles
Dung beetles give a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘waste not, want not’.
Yes, even poop is a resource too precious to waste! We may have heard of using manure as plant fertilisers but these insects don’t stop there. Their life purpose is to collect and re-purpose poop. Dung beetles use poop to build homes, lay eggs in and even eat.
Activity 4: This Planet is Ours to Protect
All those recycling crafts were fun and the animal facts were fascinating, weren’t they? But there’s a very important question we haven’t asked yet: why do we recycle?
Landfills are Bad for the Earth and Human Health
When we throw rubbish into a bin and a garbage truck picks it up, it is probably heading towards a landfill.
A landfill is the place where all of our garbage gets dumped. The garbage we throw away contains a lot of toxic waste that can leak out from disposed household items like batteries or pesticides (read up on everyday household objects you shouldn’t toss in the trash and how to properly dispose of them).
When rain falls on a landfill, it can wash the chemicals out into nearby lakes or rivers. This is bad for the fish, people who eat the fish and people who drink the water.
Gaseous toxins are another big issue. When garbage rots, it releases dangerous gasses that contribute to a phenomenon called global warming.
Global warming refers to the gradual heating of the Earth’s surface, oceans, and atmosphere. Every year, its harmful effects worsen as the human population and the amount of waste produced continue to grow.
As the trash in landfills releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), heat gets trapped in our atmosphere, causing the Earth to become hotter.
Landfills also take up a lot of space that could be otherwise used for building, farming, and other productive things. Materials like plastic and styrofoam take up to 500 years to decompose so the garbage sits there for a very, very long time!
The Journey of Landfill Toxins
Making a habit of the 3Rs can help to slow down the effects of these harmful gases and toxins on Earth!
Pollution Hurts Animals
At least 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year — that’s 900, 000 elephants worth of garbage! Plastic has become such a large part of our lives, we often don’t realise how much we use in just one day.
The plastic that we dump into oceans pose dangers for the marine animals that live there. For instance, sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfishes and end up choking on or swallowing them.
Activity: Cleaning Up Pollution
Individual pieces of trash can be picked out of a polluted water body, but the water remains dirty and murky. This is a great way to teach our little ones that prevention is better than cure!
How can we protect our planet?
Alright. Now, we know that our planet is in trouble. What can we do to help?(PSST…you can begin with the recycling tips we offered in Activity 1!)
Sustainable Crafts
Instead of going to the stationery store to stock up on materials, put on your thinking cap on and get creative! In fact, you might be surprised at how much recyclable trash you throw away!
Activity: Recycled Trees
Toilet rolls are the classics of recycled craft tools. We bet you can think of 5 toilet roll crafts off the top of your head, you clever reader, you. Here’s our pick of the day: making trees out of recycled toilet rolls. It just fits with this article’s theme, y’know.
Activity: Colour Your Life
Tired of your regular paint brushes? Get experimental with D.I.Y. ones! You can take this opportunity to explore textures with your little ones, as well!
Activity: You Blow Me Away
Are creating small soap bubbles during bath time just not cutting it for you? Make an instant professional bubble blower with materials you definitely already have at home!
Activity: Decorative Recycling Bins
Another awesome way to captivate the kids is by building the recycling bin itself out of sustainable materials! This bin was homemade by a mother and daughter duo, but it can even be an activity involving the entire classroom!
It is important to make the recycling corner appealing so that the kids won’t lose interest in developing green habits in the long run.
Check out this step-by-step tutorial for a super simple D.I.Y. recycling bin. Remember — you don’t have to follow the design exactly!
Opt for Green Alternatives
Help your little ones reduce their waste generation by making their packed school lunches clean and green. Use reusable containers and try not to buy individually packed goods or single-use products.
This toddlers’ meal set is 100% eco-friendly and 200% adorable. It is made out of bamboo fibre, and therefore biodegradable.
And here are a ton of easy suggestions for a waste-free school lunches!
Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints. Kill nothing but time.
The fate of the oceans, forests, and all of our Earth’s beautiful greenery is in our hands. While our individual efforts to be kinder to our environment may seem small, our cumulative efforts can go a long way towards saving our planet!
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