Many people say they would like to leave a good planet for the generations to come, but the sooner you teach your child about recycling, the better!
The easiest way to start is to have a conversation about recycling and why it is so important for our planet. You can talk about the different types of waste we throw away and how long it will take that specific material to break down.
If you’d like, you can do a simple experiment with your child to show them how long different materials take to decompose or break down. You can take different materials such as food waste, plastic bottles, newspaper clippings, cardboard boxes, and soda cans (anything you can think of really) and bury them in soil. Separate and bury similar items together, as this will have an effect on the experiment. For example, put the food waste separate from the metal objects and the plastic should not go with paper. In a month or two dig up these items and see which ones have decomposed completely, how much others have broken down and which ones are exactly the same.
You should also teach your child about ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’.
- Reduce – avoid using products that take a long time to degrade, such as plastic cups.
- Reuse – try buying items that you can use time and again, such as glass bottles or reusable shopping bags. You can also donate old clothes and toys to a charity of your choice.
- Recycle – separate items into different bins and dispose of them accordingly. You can have different coloured bins for plastic, glass, metal, electronics, textiles, and paper.
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