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 juice boxes and pop cans 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. They don't have to do it - they just have to make sure it happens.

2. Buy a big blue rubbermaid bucket with lid for each classroom, front foyer, and staff room (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 (glass and plastic bottles, juice boxes, pop cans are yes, milk and yoghurt products are no). Ask teachers to educate their students on what goes in, and to make sure the containers are empty with straws and lids thrown out.

4. Set up a schedule where one group is responsible for sorting the goods and cleaning the buckets every 2-3 weeks. Set up the schedule in the staff area, where staff members can be the key coordinators. Each group can use the funds for whatever purpose they decide - field trips, class parties, T-shirts. Most tend to donate the money to a worthy organization.

5. Two adults and about 10 kids can sort and clean in a half hour lunch break. Get the classes to bring down their own buckets to the cleaning area (place with sinks and lino floor). Divide the adults and kids into two teams. One team empties, sorts and counts the containers into big heavy garbage bags, and writes the totals stapled onto the top of the tied up bags. The other team scrubs the buckets with soap and water.

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. Remind the kids throughout of the goal of the recycling ("By doing this today we're helping endangered whales...."). When they see it all done in such a short time, they will feel gratified, and will come back again next time.

7. 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.

8. A couple times a year, get parent volunteers to thoroughly scrub the buckets, perhaps with a heavier product, such as one containing bleach.

9. Make sure the whole event is volunteer. If students and staff are NOT interested at any point, drop it for awhile. But at the beginning give it awhile to get everyone into a routine. Soon you'll have people looking for the recycling buckets and very unwilling to just throw the items out.

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