How can I get my school to recycle?
I’ve been trying to be eco-friendly lately, but I notice that we do little to promote recycling here. We do have some paper recycling bins in the classroom, but lots of people just toss papers into the trash can. There aren’t even aluminum can bins in the cafetorium. How can we promote recycling here?
When I was in school things were sorted and when I worked at a camp we had about 5 trashcans and each trashcan was labeled for what tiem goes in.If you feel like your school is lying and you would like for your school to begin recycling you can do the following:
1.talk to the Superintendent and tell them your concerns and what your school does and that if there isn’t really a recycling system you would like to see one placed.He/She should look into it.
2.Get a petition.have your classmates and other students sign a petition stating you all would like to have a real recycling system in place.
3.If you have more than one trashcan take it among yourself to dump your trash correcly and get others to do the same.I don’t think you would get in trouble if you placed signs on the trashcans stating what items goes in(paper,plastic,etc.)
Source(s):
experience and years ago in school remember seeing a teacher take cans out of a trashcan and get rid of them correctly.
Ask if your school has a responsible teacher who will look into joining your local Freecycle group on your behalf, you can put stuff on there that you no longer use and let someone else use it instead.
When your school is getting rid of books, paper, chairs, desks, etc you can pass them on to someone in your own community who can use them further, this stops them going into the landfill sites so helps the environment!
You can also ask for stuff you need too, ask for some compost bins then maybe you could get the kitchen staff to compost the left over food waste instead of lobbing it in the main rubbish.. f
Start an environmental club. When you have special events at your school, make sure that you have a table or something set up so that you can show others the values of recycling.
Talk to your teachers, administrators, and other students. Take a stand and show that if we take care of our planet it will benefit everyone.
take the money you earn from the recycled cans and use it toward a school party or trip, ask your principal to order some recycling bins or maybe just plastic containers. sometimes people need motivation.
Talk to your principal or your environmental teacher and see if they can have some cans put up labeled with what should go in them. And see if you can start an environmental club.
Talk to your principal and science teachers about starting an Environmental Club. You can also go to the website below to find out about fundraising for your school through recycling. They’re the Abitibi Paper Retriever company, and your school (or church or other miscellaneous organization) earns money for each load of paper you collect.
Recycling is great and your struggle is admirable, but money always talks the best. Luckily you money on your side. Talk to the administration about the money they can save by instituting a paper reduction program. By reducing copies and double siding copies your school can save tremendous amounts of money. This money can be used to increase the number of recycling bins and further awareness for teachers, students, staff, and administration.
To be sucessful you must first establish a baseline of paper usage for your school and be able to track the changes once the paper reduction program is implemented.
In the mean time ask your teachers and the cleaning staff to help by sorting classroom trash. And finally if your luck enough to get money for your recycled materials treat the school with the funds you collect.
Promote it to teachers, students, and your principle, and if you can, write a letter to your mayor, governor, etc. about your idea! They’re sure to acknowledge it, and might add blue bins that look just like the normal trash cans…. but blue
my school has them,… and they really do add up!
-Suggest this to your school’s principal
-Spread the word to your friends at school
-Ask your Chamber of Commerce or local politician for help
-Ask your Sanitation Department about recycle bins
-Have a project where people make recycle bins
-Speak to your favorite teacher for suggestions
-Have a contest of who can make the best recycling plan at your school
great question! I would first have a short meeting about your concerns with your principal and see what he/she thinks about the idea. More than likely your principal will agree with your ideas on recycling and might even help get you in contact with the local people who give out those recycling bins. next to each trash can there should be a recycling bin. It would also help to have a meeting with the students about recycling and it’s importance to our environment. This can be done during a regular assembly. I just want to say thank you for being environmentally friendly it shows a lot about your character.
make arrangements, talk to the principle and try to get a hearing with the board of education in your erea, then create a club, involve the PTA, teachers, principle, and students in it, talk about the problem at hand, if all goes well the principle and the board will have a private meeting to make that club official and paid for, for whom ever contributed to it will get benefits and discounts in local stores, trust me it works, ive done it here in my school too and more than half of the school joined and we had tons of events, like mountain hiking, free discounts from restaurants and reduced discount rates to theme parks, but all it takes is hard work and determination.
Start a petition with your friends and the school. Its always better to start a project with more people who support you. Also, Talk to your school’s class president and the principal. Make a detailed plan of why you want recycling bins and how it can help the earth. Its always best to be organized and have a plan of action or two if things dont go the way you want them too.
Good Luck!
id say start a school contest for recycling. Whichever class uses recycling most in the class (and ask teh teacher to keep track or someone) will get an ice cream sundae party or lunch party. try doing something creative that will get them involved for something they want.
My job doesnt recycle either, either does any fast food place that I see. Except for Panera Bread. Only place I ever seen recycle. I would go to the principle and the treasurer. If they do not do anything complain to the mayor and if politics dont work, have people sign paper that want to see change. Awareness is the first step.
well i think you need to do more research. paper in trash can isnt a big deal.
I would find some other kids that are willing to help recycle and protect our world. Then plan what would work best and how to do it. Also, see if you can find a teacher to act as a mentor or advisor. Then take a written plan to the principal, showing the benefits, costs and how your "committee" will help. Be prepared to get no money to do this (maybe selling cans to a recycling company – or find a corporate sponsor to help out). But explain why it needs to be done and how you and your friends will do it – not how the janitors will have more work, or the school needs to put out money. Who knows you may be the founder of the new environmental club at your school.
Good Luck.
tell them the bad effects to the environment if they dont recycle….
talk to the principal and even the schools administration. In every class STILL continue to set up recycling bins but add small incentives like the classroom that has the most paper or plastic or aluminum either in weight or by count… and every month the class with the most wins a pizza party! Or a free day to do something. Maybe even the class withthe most in 6 months wins a field trip somewhere. Use incentives it’ll be fun. For the cafetorium bring in your own large boxes an line them with garbage sacks for easy transport. Some local recycling centers will bring a truck to come pick them up…. check it out. good luck!
You are the one who can make the difference- contact recycle places who might be of some help in lending the school some recycle bins for everything. One for plastic, one for paper and so on- get rid of the big trash cans. Try to make people understand that recycling is wonderful and keeps costs down.
First of all you will have to get in and talk to your principal and try to coordinate an effort to get the word out to all the students. Then start to put trash cans around the school that have a hole big enough for soda cans. Then place signs that are on recycled paper around the school (stating that they are on recycled paper) that recycling can help produce money for after school programs, or field trips. This is a very serious topic and you have to be dedicated to making it work and you will have to get the faculty to back you on this. Together you can make a difference for your school.
Try to get the ear of an intelligent and influential teacher, and explain to them your complaint. Perhaps you can start an environmental club to teach the students about this issue, and maybe you can motivate people like that.
Another way is to tell your parents to get more involved in the PTA of your school, and to push the school administrators to enforce recycling in the cafetorium. It’s just a habit actually – throw away the plastics in the plastic recycle bin, the aluminum in the aluminum one, etc.
Contact your local town office or extension office and find the environmental control person and say you want help with starting local schools to recycle. In my state businesses like the phone company came to bat and give the kids free hamburger coupons and such to bring in their old phone books for recycling. Our town also does grinding of the greens after Christmas for the trees. some of these things may be in place or simply need to to jump start . Good luck
talk too your Principal get in touch with your local waist department I’m sure they would be happy to donate bin’s good luck.
Talk to your principal, and science teachers. I am not sure what grade you are in, but there is power in numbers. Students hold more power than they realize, you can start a petition from the students. Talk to your student body leaders. When I was in the 8th grade, one other student & myself did not believe in going to war…Desert Storm (we were young). Our whole idea was, we get in trouble for fighting, because we cannot work it out…yet as a country we will go "beat up" another country…violence begets violence. We were kids, but it was grown-up going to war, because they could not work it out… well as kids we may have tried, and when it came down to it a fight was the only good way to handle it…that was before they arrested you at school for fighting…anyway one day we decided that on the next day after first period we would all walk out of school, and sit down on the basketball courts just a sign of protest. It was the day the war started. It worked everyone walked out. We did not go crazy, we just quietly sat there for 1 period. It was our way of protest, and our voice being heard. We all went back to class later that day, but when you all ban together, there is power in numbers. Students will always out number the facultiy, just let them know what you want done. As far as others throwing paper in the trash can as opposed to recycling bins…when you see it get up and do what is right. Make a joke about how hard it is, but you understand that they need your help…
The Recycle Challenge is a project where students are challenged to begin a recycling program at their school. The Challenge, begun at Black Mountain Elementary School, was made possible by a grant from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and carried out over the 2002-2003 school year. The results of our work were presented at the end of the school year to the Cave Creek Unified School District Governing Board to convince them that recycling makes sense and should be implemented in all schools and offices in the Cave Creek Unified School District.
The Challenge was driven by inquiry-based activities that engaged students in planning an effective recycling program, monitoring the plan’s effectiveness through collection of data, and looking for evidence of the need to recycle in the world around them. The activities are linked to Arizona State Standards and were integrated into the classroom in support of the regular curriculum. The activities were intended for use primarily in grades 4-8 but involved students in all grade levels K-8 in the recycling effort.
We have created this Web-based resource for use by other schools in Arizona that want to begin a recycling effort similar to ours. The guide is a series of activities that will help you set-up a Recycle Challenge at your school. It is organized in four basic sections that are organized in the following way:
Introduction – a brief introduction to the section with guiding questions to help guide inquiry
Challenge – a list of tasks that students must complete to collect data or information that will help answer the guiding questions
Process – an overview of the steps students need to take to complete the challenge
Evaluation – suggested criteria for evaluating student work
Conclusion – suggestions on how to share student work from this section
Teacher – additional instructions for the teacher
The links below will take you to each section of The Recycle Challenge. Once you and your students have completed all (or parts of The Challenge) you will be able to create your own presentation to your school on your results. We’ve linked a copy of the PowerPoint presentation Black Mountain students created and presented to the Cave Creek Unified School District Governing Board for you to use as an example. You can also visit Black Mountain Elementary School’s Recycle Challenge Web site to see the results of our work for 2002-2003.
Please feel free to contact us if you would like more information or have questions about The Recycle Challenge. We would also like to hear from you about your recycling efforts so we can link samples of other schools’ work to this Web site.
The Recycle Challenge – What’s the Plan?
Can you come up with a recycling plan to help your school recycle?
Often you don’t think about what you throw away. As a result many materials that can be recycled end up going into the garbage. In this part of The Recycle Challenge students answer the following questions:
What is your school’s current system for dealing with waste?
What can students do to redirect and reduce the amount recyclable material thrown away.
The Recycle Challenge – What Can Nature Teach Us About Recycling?
Can observing nature help you to understand the importance of recycling?
If you keep your eyes open you can see how "the web of nature" is dependent on recycling to maintain its balance. In this part of The Recycle Challenge students answer these guiding questions:
What role do worms play in the ecosystem?
What evidence of recycling can be found in local ecosystem?
Have humans learned any tricks from nature to help us recycle?
The Recycle Challenge – How are We Doing?
How effective is your recycling plan and can you improve it?
There is always room for improvement in most plans. Careful observation and data analysis can help you to test how well a recycling plan is working. This will let you modify the plan if needed. In this part of The Recycle Challenge students look at data collected on their recycling efforts and answer these guiding questions:
How much are we recycling?
How can a waste audit help us to improve the effectiveness of our plan?
How should our recycling plan be modified to improve its effectiveness?
The Recycle Challenge – How does technology improve our ability to recycle?
Why do some people argue that it doesn’t make sense to recycle because it costs too much?
Technology plays an important part in our ability to recycle. Some thing’s are not recycled because people haven’t thought of an efficient way or reason to recycle. In this part of The Recycle Challenge students will look at how technology relates to recycling using the following guiding questions:
How has technology improved our ability to recycle paper?
Are there examples of technology opening up new markets for recyclable materials?
Should we abandon recycling if it is not cost effective?
have a trash can and a recyclable can next to eachothr in halls lunch room etc…
Collect the cans yourself and exchange them for some money at your nearest recycling center : )