Every year Recyclebank connects with schools across the country to create opportunities for kids to take a leading role in sustainability at their school. Schools submit their concepts for eco-friendly projects, and Recyclebank picks the best ones and funds them based on points donations from you, the Recyclebank community. You can donate some of your points to these green projects to encourage students to learn about sustainability and get involved in improving their communities!
Here are just a few of the awesome projects you can donate points to this year:
Installing Recycle Bins Instills A Good Habit
One of the first needs for recycling to flourish is a system for its collection. But many schools don’t have enough — or any — recycling bins! Without bins to collect recyclables, it’s very difficult for a school to make recycling a reality. That’s why Comenius School for Creative Leadership, in Fort Mill, SC is hoping to put a recycle bin in every room in their school. Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia, PA wants to put a waste sorting station in the cafeteria, where recycling could be collected instead of trashed, and students could become accustomed to knowing how to dispose of various products. Rochester Adams High School in Philadelphia, PA has similar plans for installing cafeteria recycling-bins.
Inside And Outside Gardens Inspire Care For The Earth
If kids hear about the need to care for the earth, but they rarely (if ever) experience the joys, magic, and benefits of the natural world, it may be hard to convince them to make efforts to care for it, especially living in a city where it’s often easier not to.
Enter the school-learning garden. A place for students to take an active role in greening their school while learning about ecology and about our essential relationship with the natural world. Delta Kelly Elementary School is looking to create an indoor wall garden, while Paul L. Dunbar School wants to build an outdoor garden!
Avoiding Single-Use Plastic With Reusable Water Bottles
Single-use plastic is a big problem, and a big part of its solution is shifting habits away from a throwaway culture. To do that, single-use habits need to be replaced with a more sustainable alternative. Schools are hoping to help by providing reusable water bottles to students and faculty and by encouraging their use with water-bottle filling stations. Eliza B. Kirkbride School wants to give reusable water bottles to reduce the reliance on single-use plastic bottles. Griffin Elementary School wants to install hydration stations that encourage reusable water-bottle adoption.
Upcycling Single-Use Waste Into Recycling Bins
During this past year’s election EXCEL Academy in McDonough, GA had an innovative idea: To upcycle campaign signs into recycle bins to encourage recycling. To do so they plan to partner with campaign offices to get used signs, which they will then construct into sturdy recycling bins, to be placed in classrooms and given to school administrators to use in their offices. They hope to go a step further to spread the idea by putting out a challenge on social media for other schools to join in on the project in their respective communities.
Repairing Bikes Otherwise Bound For The Landfill
Repair is one “R” that many people don’t consider enough. These days, because many products are relatively cheap — and also cheaply made — the incentive for many people is to just buy a new one if something breaks, since with many products that’s easier and cheaper to do so. This obviously generates tons of waste.
But it didn’t used to be this way. People used to own fewer, more well-built things. And because those things were more expensive, when they broke, the first option was to try to repair them. Furness High School’s Recycle, Repair, Ride program aims to bring back into fashion the approach of repairing products, to extend their life and keep useful items out of the landfill. They hope to create a bike-repairing club that teaches students useful skills while instilling values of sustainability, such as conserving resources and thinking long-term.
Student green projects represent a huge opportunity to create lasting positive environmental and social impact in these schools’ communities and in our larger society. Check out these, and many more, opportunities to support creative, eco-friendly school projects here »
