Go Green: Six Helpful Tips To Teach Kids The Importance Of Recycling

Even young children can learn the importance of recycling, especially if you make it fun for them. This is the time to teach your kids to respect their world and be resourceful rather than wasteful. Here are six tips to get you started and keep it fun for the kids:

Assess the Situation

Help your kids conduct a waste assessment in your home to identify any inefficiencies, such as wasting electricity, or ways in which the amount of trash they generate might be reduced. Encourage them to be more aware of how many items they are wasting or underusing both at home and away. When they understand that there is a need to make a difference, they will be more willing and excited about the change.

Recycle Regularly

It’s simple to recycle if you have a plan, so teach your kids early to look for the recycling symbol on all products. Show them how bottles, containers and other items are to be recycled in your home and encourage them to take ownership of their own trash. They should know about the most important items to recycle, as well as just how many things around the home can be recycled.

Make It Fun

Share some interesting facts about things like water consumption, the number of diapers in landfills or any other startling statistics which are likely to make an impact. Turn a family outing in the park into a recycling game, gathering random materials for some creative fun once you return home. Challenge everyone in the family, individually or in teams, to make something unique out of something they would normally just throw away.

Create a Compost Bin

Explain the purpose of composting and then create a compost bin to add to your recycling plan. Have the kids take turns mixing the compost and then let them use it to plant their own little garden plot. Having their own small garden or plant to take care of gives them a sense of responsibility.

Repurpose With Purpose

Before you throw away old toys or give away old jewelry, see how creative your kids can be in making something different and useful out of those items. Changing a brooch into a necklace or scrap metal into a mini picture frame will allow them to find new usefulness for the items as well as stimulate their imaginations.

Scrap and Save

Save scrap metal until you have enough to take to a local scrap metal recycler. The metal will be re-used to make cars, and the money can be applied to something specific for which your kids are saving. This provides a double incentive to recycle.

Recycling can be fun and educational. The habits your children develop now will stay with them into adulthood, when they will be able to teach their children by example just as you are teaching them.

Informational credit to Greater Texas Metal Recycling Co. Inc.