Recycling: Educating our Children

It is time to clean up our environment now. As populations grow, more trash is generated, and it’s up to society not only to reduce it, but to be responsible about how it is disposed of. 

Imagine if we carry on this way, what our children will inherit. Dirty beaches, fly-tipped waste, and littering on a grand scale. It’s too horrible to think where it could all end up.

We at Rubbish Removal Chester are only too aware of the problems facing our future. We are like-minded with environmental cleanup campaigns in and around the Chester area. As a local waste removal service provider, we are at the forefront of creating awareness about the preservation of our environment and protecting it from being damaged by litter. 

It is very encouraging to see young people participating in these clean up campaigns. But we can’t expect to leave it to the few of them that are concerned and need to find ways to broaden the base in order to encourage children to make recycling part of their lives.

 

The Three “R’s” of Waste Management

At school the focus is on reading, writing, and arithmetic. Often called the three R’s, this is an essential life skill which we take for granted. The emergence of a new 3 R, namely reduce, reuse, and recycle is not such a critical skill in most people’s eyes. However, if we are to save our planet from destruction by litter, it must assume a more elevated status in all young people’s lives.

So, by introducing it to our children when they are young, they grow up with the responsibility of ensuring waste doesn’t damage our environment. Continuous awareness and use of the R’s of reducing, reusing, and recycling will entrench this discipline in everyone’s lives.

 

• Reducing

We are living in a throw away society. It's easy to buy a bottle of water only to throw the plastic bottle away 2 minutes later. While it may seem difficult to convince your children not to always expect new toys or buy all kinds of exciting eats in plastic wrappers, they need to be made aware of the consequences of the flow chain involved in their manufacture.

1. All disposable items are factory made, which requires energy, churns out factory waste, and uses resources from the earth.
2. They all need to be transported somewhere, more trucks on the road, more pollution when they give off CO2 emissions.
3. As the factory and transport uses water and oil, these are nature’s resources which are getting depleted.
4. Then the consideration as to where the waste will end up, when that bottle is not needed anymore.
5. If they end up in the landfill, then this ground is basically polluted and useless, because bio-degradation takes forever.

Unfortunately, it’s become ingrained in our shopping habits generally that we always need new stuff, and most of this is disposable. But still, kids should know that we must start somewhere. 

 

• Reusing

Take time to encourage children to find ways to reuse items, like not having to buy a plastic bag each time we go shopping but using a reusable bag instead. It was expected that having to pay for the bags would have this effect, and it has, with usage dropping by a whopping 85%.

The same applies to buying bottled water at refill stations, by taking your old bottle to be refilled, or refilling ink cartridges instead of buying new ones each time.

Yes, we all can make a difference, we just have to make the choice each time we are thinking of buying something. Also, we are saving money at the same time!

 

• Recycling

This concept should be an easy one to teach children. Encourage them to make things out of old plastic, wood, glass, or metal. It’s a creative thing to do with them, and they will feel empowered when they do.

In this way they will become aware of the process of recycling and think about all the items that hit the waste bin. Hopefully this awareness creation will help contribute to less litter and a cleaner environment.

 

6 Ways to Teach Our Kids about Recycling

• Learn about our Environment

Kids have soft hearts and when an animal digests plastic, or is caught up in a polluted river, explain the consequences of the bad state the environment is in as a result of litter or pollution. It will convey the message effectively.

 

• Make it Fun

Instead of making recycling serious, which it is, make it relevant and fun for the children. Use bright coloured bins for separation of waste, encourage them to make things out of waste, have a competition or give small rewards for doing recycling. Take them to an HWRC (Household Waste Recycling Centre) and show them how waste is recycled.

 

• Where does our Rubbish go?

Ok, so the waste removal guy pitches up and removes the waste, end of story. Not so, when you are passing a landfill, make a big issue of how stinky it is and how much waste is in the landfill, basically useless, polluting our environment. 

 

• Think about Purchases

As populations on earth keep growing this disposable mindset can’t be sustained. Explain the concept of making it useful for longer, or simply wearing it out, or even not having it.

 

• Share the Knowledge

It's an easy topic to talk about, because it concerns everyone. When we get sick from pollution, we feel bad. When the animals die, we lament. When our environment is dirty it's an eyesore. Show them litter and speak about fly tipping.

 

• Join a movement

Join a movement like Clean Up UK, or sign a petition like ‘Don’t Trash Our Future’, and become a responsible citizen, your children will follow your example.

 

Follow our example at Rubbish Removal Chester. As a local service provider, we are dedicated to a cleaner and healthier environment. Our prices for waste removal are keen and competitive, our reliability 100%, and our staff are friendly and professional.

If you’d like some help with your waste management, feel free to contact us today for a free, No Obligation quote, or fill in the Contact Form on our website: 

Chester 01244 953100

Email: enquiries@rubbishremovalchester.co.uk

Website: https://www.rubbishremovalchester.co.uk/