Waste Reduction and Recycling
Quick Tips:
- Before starting a new school year, sort through the school supplies on-hand. Many supplies, like notebooks or pens and pencils, can be reused or recycled. You can share your used books and other school supplies with friends, relatives, or younger schoolchildren.
- For school dances or other events, decorations and other supplies can be borrowed or rented. If you buy these supplies, try adopting a theme that can be used from year-to-year, so that you can reuse them.
- Many schools reuse text books to save money and reduce waste. Covering your textbooks with cut-up grocery or shopping bags helps reduce waste and keeps your books in good condition.
- Save packaging, colored paper, egg cartons, and other items for arts and crafts projects. Look for other ways you can reduce the amount of packaging you throw away and recycle!
- Use nontoxic products, inks and art supplies, such as vegetable-based inks, white tape instead of whiteout, and water-based paints, and batteries with less mercury.
- Use and maintain durable products, or ones with a lifetime warranty. Sturdy backpacks and notebooks can be reused for many years, which helps reduce the amount of broken items tossed away each year.
- If you bring your lunch to school, package it in reusable containers instead of disposable ones, and carry them in a reusable plastic or cloth bag, or lunch box. Bring drinks in a thermos or water bottle instead of disposable bottles or cartons.
- If you buy lunch, take and use only what you need: one napkin, one ketchup packet, one salt packet, one pepper packet, one set of flatware. Remember to recycle your cans and bottles, and separate your waste if your school has separation bins!
- To reduce packaging waste, use school supplies wrapped with minimal packaging, use compact or concentrated products, or buy products in bulk.
Community Service and Volunteering
Quick Tips:
- Volunteer for, or start, an environmental club or recycling project in your school. Work with your teachers and friends to find ways to encourage everyone in your community to make waste reduction a part of their everyday lives, such as starting a school composting project or ask for a day in art class where you can use things that would have normally been thrown away.
- Tell your teachers you want to have a time dedicated to learning more about what you and your fellow classmates can do for the environment.
This information was borrowed from the EPA website.
