Background information:

Recycling is one of the easiest ways of being green. All it takes is putting the right thing in the right bin. But why do it? Well, there are several reasons, and they're all very important.

All the raw materials required to make any of the goods we use come from finite resources, meaning that once they run out, you won't be able to get them back. Recycling means we can use these items over and over again.
In most cases, getting the raw materials uses more energy than recycling. In the case of aluminium cans, for example, making a can from recycled materials rather than raw materials saves 95% of the energy used to make the can from scratch. What about paper? We can always grow more trees to make more paper, but growing more trees requires water and energy, and if trees are grown just for paper products, there is less water and energy for the natural environment.
Recycling reduces the amount of waste going to landfill. Less waste in landfill means less waste in our environment, which is better for everyone.

However, there are specific rules about what can be recycled and what can't. If you're uncertain of the rules in your area, check with your local council about what they accept for recycling. Generally, paper, cardboard, glass, plastic water and soft drink bottles are fine. Recycling plastics can be more tricky: to know if you can recycle your plastic packaging look for the Australasian Recycling Label.

Definitions:

Recycle - Recycling is a process of changing (waste) materials into new products to prevent the waste of valuable materials.
Resource - A resource is a supply of something valuable to us in some way.
Finite - Finite resources, also known as non-renewable resources, will one day run out.

New words for kid to learn:

Recycling
Rubbish
Landfill
Plastic
Aluminium

Activity: Reducing Lunchbox Waste

What to do

You might ask children to grab one item from their lunchbox, or, if you provide food at your centre, you can grab a range of items, such as a muesli bar, a packet of chips, a sandwich, and a juice bottle.

Ask children what they do with the waste from each of these items. The answer is probably 'put it in the bin!' or, if we're being mindful, we might try and recycle the juice bottle.

The following graphic (available on these Image Slides) can show this process.

We buy our lunch items from Coles, eat them (yum!), and then throw the waste in the bin, which ends up in a landfill. The idea of a landfill is likely entirely new to the children. You could explain landfills as places where all the stuff from our bins that can't be, or hasn't been, recycled ends up. They're basically big, open bins for all of our waste!

Waste going to a landfill isn't great. It harms our environment and sticks around for a very long time.

As a group, come up with some alternatives to those last two steps.

We can definitely recycle our juice bottles, which allows the materials to be turned back into more juice bottles or other things.

There's an even better alternative to recycling our juice bottles. We'd be even more sustainable if we didn't use the disposable juice bottle.

Can children see a way of drinking that delicious juice without recycling many small bottles?

One way would be to buy a big container of juice and drink from containers such as glasses or water bottles, which we can reuse many times without going into a landfill or recycling.

It's the same with a lot of the things in our lunchboxes. We already have some great, reusable containers for transporting and protecting our food - we don't need to put another layer around them!

Taking it further

At your art station, children can draw a comic like the ones shown above, explaining where their waste ends up. You can also use a printout of Activity A on page 17 and Activity B on page 18 from Planet Ark’s Waste-free Lunch guide to help students understand the environmental benefits of reusable packaging.

an image showing the two pages of the waste free lunch guide

Alternatively, they could draw a picture of their perfect lunchbox where they have eliminated all the waste by using reusable containers.

You can host a waste-free lunch challenge as a follow-up to this lesson. Check out Planet Ark’s Waste Free Lunch Guide with easy steps to ensure your activity is successful! If you do, ensure you provide students with the participation certificates found on page 26 of the guide.

Evaluation

Complete an analysis of learning by listing evidence about:

Belonging	Finding something of interest
Communication	Expressing an idea or feeling
Exploration	Engaging with challenges and persisting when difficulty arises
Well-being	Being involved

National Recycling Week - Reducing Lunchbox Waste

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Summary

Activity guides and printables

Activity Details

Curriculum Mapping

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