Vision

Our vision was to reduce the amount of plastic being thrown into the garbage within our school, and use the idea of a simple box to help recycle and properly dispose items in our community around us.

Action

For our Action Project, we decided to focus on what we saw a lot of that was being thrown out or improperly recycled. After brainstorming, we decided that markers were a major source of plastic waste in our school that was not being addressed in our blue bin recycling program. We also thought it would be useful to create a place where old batteries could be collected from both the students and staff, as well as by people in our community to be safely discarded at a suitable site.

In our thinking, we decided to call our project, “Saving Our Planet…One Box at a Time”. students thought it would be helpful for each classroom to have a collection box made out of sustainable materials, wood in our case, where old markers and pens could be collected. Then, we would build a larger bin that would be found near our school entrance, where, after being collected, markers and pens could be deposited and then taken off-site to be recycled. For the batteries, we simply built another large box that would serve as a repository for old batteries and again, to be taken off-site to be disposed of properly.

During our project, we conducted a deeper dive into plastics, in particular microplastics, and it’s effect on both humans and the environment. We conducted a plastics scavenger hunt in our school, and students were tasked with choosing two plastic items that they could rethink and redesign using natural materials.

Reflection & Celebration

Upon reflection, we are excited to see a full school year of how our recycling program will be used, collect data, and track our progress. We celebrate our accomplishment of creating two more sources for recycling within our school community.