The Global Education Club

It only takes one person to change a whole school! This boy asked to start a recycling bucket in his grade 3 classroom. He and his mom collected beverage containers from children's snacks and lunches, and donated the money to Ducks Unlimited throughout a whole year.

The Global Club thought this was such a good idea that they started the program in every class the next year.

Here's how to make it work:

1. Designate an adult as the recycling coordinator. 

2. Buy a big blue rubbermaid bucket with lid for each classroom (with proceeds from the first rounds of recycling. About $7 a piece).

3. On the top write in indelible marker what can and cannot go in the bucket. Ask teachers to educate their students on what goes in.

4. Set up a schedule where one group is responsible for sorting the goods every 2-4 weeks. Funds can be used for any purpose.

5. Two adults and about 10 kids sort and count the items into bags. Staple the number on the outside.  It takes about 45 minutes.

6. All the kids and adults will at first smell say "Ick!" But very quickly they will roll up their sleeves and dive in. Hands are, after all, washable. 

7. Teachers are responsible for cleaning out their own buckets.

8. Commend yourselves, and load the bags into an adult's car for drop off at the recycling depot. Drop off is literally ONLY 5 MINUTES, because the items are already sorted and counted. The depot will just plug in those numbers, and then you're out of there.

9. A couple times a year, get parent volunteers to thoroughly scrub the buckets.

10. Make sure the whole event is volunteer. If no staff are willing, offer it to the parent community. They're always looking for fundraisers!

Click on the small pictures to see them larger! Click on the arrows to see more pictures!

All classes bring their buckets to the recycling room. The room should have a washable floor and sinks. You need 12 kids and 2 adults, in 2 teams

The sorting team dumps all the containers into a few of the buckets. The cleaning team can start cleaning the empty buckets.

The sorting team squeezes the leftover juice out into the buckets.

They put the lids and straws in the garbage.

In pairs they count the containers into bags. Each pair of people can work on a different kind of container.

All the bags are labelled with the kind and number of containers. This makes quick drop off at the depot.

The cleaning team scrubs the buckets with warm water, soap and paper towels.

They dry the lids and buckets.

They put the lids back on the buckets, and have classes pick them up again.

Everyone helps clean up the floors and finish the final bags.

We celebrate by reminding ourselves of the money we will donate to a worthy cause from our half hour of effort, and how we're helping the environment.

Have an adult drop off the bags at the depot. It only takes 5 minutes because they're already sorted, labelled and counted.

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All classes bring their buckets to the recycling room. The room should have a washable floor and sinks. You need 12 kids and 2 adults, in 2 teams