Recycling and segregating waste into their proper bins is an incredibly important lesson for your kids. This is a concept that should be taught to children, whether they are in school or at home. As parents, it is your responsibility to make kids aware of the importance of protecting the environment, reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and using as few natural resources as possible.
If your municipality has reliable waste collection services, the facility will teach you how to segregate your household waste property so that they can be upcycled appropriately. You might have to invest in different bins to separate wet waste, sanitary waste, dry waste, hazardous waste, and debris/inert.
In most municipalities, wet and sanitary waste should be collected daily, while dry waste should be disposed of weekly. Hazardous waste is to be collected quarterly, while debris/inert will be picked up periodically. Teach your kids about the schedule of garbage and waste pickup. Give them the task of bringing the bins outside (make sure the containers aren’t too heavy for them) and bringing them back in the garage or the house.
Here are other fun and entertaining activities to do with kids and teach them the importance of waste management:
Organize a Recycling Drive
Work with your neighbors to organize a recycling drive in your community. You can go from house to house and pick up recyclable materials. Once the materials have already been picked up, you can bring those to the recycling facilities. Make it fun for your kids by inviting other kids in the neighborhood. They can even dress up as trash bins to make it fun for the households to give away their recyclable trash to you.
Decorate Your Recycling Bins
Since you should have about five different recycling bins, you can decorate them accordingly. Look for papers, pins, old buttons, strips of clothing, and many other things around the house that you can use to decorate the trash cans. Let the kids decorate each bin on what should go there. For example, the wet container should have vegetable and fruit peelings, food waste, tea leaves, pencil shavings, shredded newspapers, soiled tissue paper, and flowers.
Go to the Recycling Center
Instead of going to the mall as a family, why not take the kids to the recycling facility? Most of these plants are only too happy to tour you in their facility, so you’ll have an idea of what happens to the waste that’s taken there. Your kids will be wowed by the big machines and equipment used to recycle waste products.
Play a Game
How about a quiz night about what’s recyclable and what’s not? Let your kids compete with each other and have a prize waiting for the one who wins (of course, those who lose should have consolation prizes, too). This is an excellent way to test how much your kids know about recycling and segregation.
There are many ways to teach kids the importance of managing their waste. When they grow up, these are the lessons that will stay with them. They’ll also take these lessons outside the home and pass it on to their friends and schoolmates.
