Vision

After learning about issues related to the plastic crisis and overconsumption, my students realized that our school produces a lot of waste from school lunches and a daily snack cart that comes once a day for students. Students noticed that much of this waste goes directly into the garbage as much of the plastic packaging cannot be recycled.

Action

Our class decided to invest in two TerraCycle bins to collect the daily waste from school lunches and snacks. We purchased two bins. One for collecting snack wrappers and one for plastics that could not usually be recycled such as Ziplock bags. We began this project in late January of 2025 and quickly expanded the project to involve plastic collection for three Grade 6 classes full time and for school activities like dances and large projects. For the full time use between our three classes, we kept the bins in one homeroom and set up smaller collection bins for to be kept in the other classes. It became a part of student jobs and classroom responsibilities to put all recyclable snack wrappers and plastics into the proper bins. At the end of each day, students would bring the collected trash to the homeroom and empty the bins into the TerraCycle, making sure all food waste was disposed of before throwing containers in.

Our class also made use of the TerraCycle bins for school functions and projects. One of our projects involved creating a sustainable innovation that could be taken to market. Some of the leftover plastics brought in by students were able to be recycled into our plastics bin. Another opportunity to maximize the use of our bins was to make them available at our school spring dance. Our school had a canteen set up for the dance and our class set up the bins outside of the dance with a student monitor to help students recycle their snack wrappers.

Reflection & Celebration

Overall, this project has been very successful, and we were able to completely fill our bins over the course of 5 months. This project has inspired students to think differently about food waste and encouraged them to think more sustainably about what they bring to school. It also highlighted the waste produced by our snack program and offered a way to manage our waste as a school more sustainably.

This project was very popular with students and staff alike. It helped raise awareness and hopefully encourages other students not directly involved in the program to make more sustainable choices. It provided everyone with an opportunity to make a difference in the school and community. Going into next year, we hope to invest in more TerraCycle bins at different grade levels; by doing so every class will have an opportunity to dispose of their waste in a more sustainable way.