How to start recycling with TerraCycle in your school

As parents, educators, or even members of the wider community, we all want to provide the brightest future possible for young people today! 

To make this happen, the classroom is an amazing place to start! To begin your recycling journey, we thought we’d share a few easy tips and tricks on how you can kickstart a recycling program at your school with TerraCycle!

1. Get your school on board! Get your Principal, senior team leaders or P&C involved by asking them to help you increase recycling rates in the community and stop waste from going to landfill. You could even consider asking a dedicated teacher or school leader to champion and run sustainable initiatives at your school. 

2. Decide what recycling method would best suit your school’s location: Consider making your school a Community Collection Hub – which is an easy-to-access recycling station where students, parents or even members of the wider community can drop off items for TerraCycle’s free recycling programs. What’s more, the more you collect, the more funds you can raise for your school and you might even be in the running for some great prizes. Stay tuned for new competitions and incentives coming in 2021!

3. Spread the word! More awareness means more people getting involved and more waste collected! To get the word out there, be creative and don’t hold back! You can do anything from posters on noticeboards, posts on community Facebook/NextDoor pages, stories in your local media, or even just items in the school newsletter.

4. Knowledge is key! It’s important that we not only raise the next generation with good environmental practices but also educate them on some of the risks our planet is facing so that sustainable behaviours and lifestyles become a way of life! There are some amazing organisations that are dedicated to teaching students about the climate such as Eco Educate, which works with primary and secondary schools around Australia to embed sustainable practices and learnings into their curriculum.  

5. For anything that can’t be recycled in your CCH There are some waste streams that you can’t send to TerraCycle for free because a brand is yet to sponsor them. One of those is PPE. Although it’s amazing that once again we can all come together in the classroom, there’s still the problem of tackling huge amounts of disposable face mask and gloves waste.  To dispose of PPE waste, you could consider asking your school to buy a Zero Waste Box that accepts disposable masks and gloves, and open it up to the community.