Recycling

Project Themes for Recycling
Children love arts and crafts projects and this type of project offers you great opportunities to discuss with your children the purpose of recycling and how it benefits the world. Get your entire community or church involved and see how a recycling project can change how people view the world.

• Save the Oceans: Focus on a theme such as stopping ocean pollutionby discussing with your children the harmful things that find their way into the world's oceans. Select one item that is highly detrimental, such as a plastic water bottle. Have your children collect several plastic bottles to use with colored sand. Let your child recreate an ocean floor inside the bottle. Add tiny seashells for a nice display.
• Recycle Weekend: A great project to get the entirecommunity involved is to hold a recycling weekend. This is a good project for a church, Girl Scouts troop, classroom or professional organization. Do some research before deciding on which items to collect. Call local recycling centers to see what can and cannot be processed. You may also want to check with private recycling companies to find out if they have a pick up service and what they pay bythe pound. Any money you receive from the drive can go to the organization, you may decide to use it for a beautification project or to finance your next recycling project. Designate a dropoff place, such as a church or community center that you get permission to use. Use social networking outlets, public announcement services and other forms of advertising your weekend event. Some popularrecycling items are newspapers, plastic bottles, old tires, tin cans and scrap metal.
• Grow a Plant in a Bottle: Use a plastic bottle for growing a plant by cutting off the top two-thirds. Have your child fill the remaining one-third with potting soil and plant a tomato or flower seed. Help your child care for the seedling and later transplant into the family garden.
• Paper Towel Tubes for PottingPlants: Another recycling project ideal for spring is to collect paper tubes from toilet paper and paper towel rolls. Have your child help you cut these into 4 inch segments. Next, fold one end of the tube onto itself to form a flattened end. Next, fill the tube with potting soil about a half-inch from the rim. Plant a squash or other vegetable seed. Once the seedling has its second growth ofleaves, transplant into the family garden. Because the paper tube is untreated and biodegradable, you can plant the entire tube. Use this opportunity to discuss with your child how decomposition occurs and how she has kept the cardboard from ending up in a landfill.
• Newspapers for Weed Barriers: Collect old newspapers (most are printed with soy inks). Don't use the color slick inserts. Placenewspapers around shrubbery and other plants instead of landscaping fabric. The newspapers hold moisture and will decompose after five or six years. This is an excellent way to recycle those stacks of newspapers.
• Make a Composter: Recycle an old trashcan, preferably one on wheels. Drill large holes in the bottom and random holes on the sides. Explain to your child how the holes on the bottom of thecontainer will let water seep out and the ones on the sides provide ventilation to keep air flowing inside the container. Next, let your child help you rake leaves or grass clippings and place these in the trash bin. You can then discuss how the leaves and grass clipping will eventually decompose into a compost you can use in the vegetable and flower gardens.
• Quilting Party: If you're part of aquilting guild or simply enjoy sewing, gather other quilters together for a quilting party, using old clothes cut into quilting squares. Make this an ongoing project and hold an auction for the quilts to raise money for other recycling projects. Expand your endeavors to making lunch sacks, bookbags and totes and hold an annual sale or open an online store.
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