This week marked National Recycling Day on Thursday, November 15th. While it may not seem to be an obvious screen-free activity to do with your toddler, recycling has become part of our daily routine in the mornings.
As toast is toasting or water is on the stove for oatmeal, we head out to our recycling bins and take the previous day’s bottles and jars out. It’s nice to think that Tomato will have always had recycling as a part of her life. It will be second nature for her. By heading out together to do this task, it has given us conversations which have been a great way for us to discuss colors, sizes, materials and the days of the week. She is constantly asking if we need to take the cans down for trash day and it lets us review which day of the week it is.
These conversations transition well to our errands when we are out and about. Starbucks has new recycling bins and we talk about what can go in them. Also, Whole Foods has several different ways to put away your trash, so we talk about compost, trash and recycling there. One of the programs available at Whole Foods is the Gimme 5 program.
photo courtesy of Preserve
We have been longtime users of Preserve toothbrushes and razors and have used their Gimme 5 program to mail in old toothbrushes and razor handles, Brita filters and for Stonyfield yogurt cups. They have recently partnered with Burt’s Bees in order to recycle their lip balm containers and all plastic caps.
Photo courtesy of Burt’s Bees
You are able to recycle #5 plastics and they are converted into other plastic items. Your lip balm tube today may be your yogurt cup tomorrow. It’s a great way to help out and to talk with your kids about how we can close the loop on plastics. Before you take your plastics to the store, have your kids help you to clean them or rinse them out. They can sort them by size, color or type of container and then give them the opportunity to put them into the Gimme 5 bin (followed by a high five of course!). Allowing them to help gives them ownership of the good habits that you want them to have and they feel a part of the solution.
Photo courtesy of Choose Cartons
Another recycling activity that kids can help with is with the cartons that you may have in the house. Recently, I discovered that cartons were able to be included in our town’s recycling. You can check to see if your town does right here. So, now I have to make sure to remember to put them in our bins. Luckily, I have a 2 year old Tomato who is on top of it and reminds me every time she sees one being emptied. A benefit of choosing cartons as containers for your foods is that they are made from a renewable resource, wood pulp, and are coming from responsibly managed forests.
Photo courtesy of Choose Cartons
In addition to being recyclable, cartons are reusable in many ways such as birdhouses, planters, and containers. We’ll be exploring some of these activities in a future TV Free Friday post as we get towards the spring season. This gardening and birding family is looking forward to what we can do with them!
So, the next time that you head out to the recycling bin, take your kids along. Talk to them about the importance of closing the loop on the life of materials, teach them about keeping things out of our landfills, and do some fun sorting activities. For those of you with preschoolers, go slowly and do some letter exploration with the words on the cartons. With older kids, talk about geography if you can find where the companies are based on the carton. Enjoy the communication building and environmental responsibility learning opportunities!
What do you do to involve your kids with recycling?
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Aww, happy recycling day! We just finished taking out our bins to the curb for pickup this morning. And although our little Monkey is not yet old enough to understand what it is that we’re doing when we sort our trash, recycling, and compost into different containers, I still love the fact that he’s seeing it from such a young age. As he grows up, it’ll just be normal for him. Unfortunately, I didn’t grow up that way, and had to start on my own later in life, but I’m happy that I’m getting to change that for my kids. 🙂
It’s great that it will always be a part of their lives!
We are avide recylers here too. We try to find multiple uses for things so often the kids utilize containers, etc for other things before they find their way to the recycle bin.
Good idea, Krystyna! I feel like arts and crafts will utilize more upcycling as our little one gets older.
Becky, We recycle many thing my son is lovely because he gets it he tells us we mush reduce our foot print. Thanks great post
So cute that he knows about reducing your footprint. Good job!
If it weren’t for my kids, I’d have piles of recycling around our house! One of their chores is to take it all outside…we are lucky to have a fantastic recycling program in our township which takes just about everything, curbside, once a week!
Great to hear, Jessica! Glad that it’s part of their chores too!
There are a lot of great tips here. Love that you are teaching your daughter by example. What a blessing!
Thanks! She loves doing it too!
we recycle so much but also love to incorporate some into our crafts. That gives some stuff a second life.
Good idea, Melinda! We’ll have to start to do that as our Tomato gets older.
Unfortunately, we live in an apartment, and just don’t have to room to recycle at the moment. But we do upcycle as much as possible.
Every little step helps!
Love that yesterday was America Recycles Day and so many people pledged to start recycling at home. My son is only two but he sees us reusing, recycling, taking things out to the compost, etc. I hope he will be involved with those tasks in the future when he can start doing chores!!
I love going “green”, and recycling. Thanks for these great ideas on how to actually do it all.