Practice Recycling to Teach Kids Important Life Lessons

Cleanliness is next to Godliness! We must have heard this phrase many times. As parents, we teach our kids to be clean, follow hygiene rules and keep the home tidy. In this blog, we delve deeper into the topic of recycling and highlight key learnings that your kids may earn by being responsible Earth dwellers.

What is recycling?

The process of converting waste materials into something useful is called recycling. These objects would have otherwise been chucked away as trash and be wasted. Recycling is indeed the need of the hour.

Our planet is reeling from the effects of Covid-19 and global warming is adding to the list of troubles we are in. Every household uses plastic items, and a single piece of plastic takes around 500 years to decompose. How then will our planet ever be clean? However, we can make every small action count.

Advantages of recycling

  • Reduces the amount of waste that is sent to landfills.
  • Puts less pressure on resources that are scanty, like minerals, wood, etc.
  • Avoids unnecessary logistics of shipping new materials from one place to the other, and thereby reduces pollution. -Helps create employment opportunities within the recycling and waste management industry.
  • Producing new items from old ones brings down energy consumption by 66%.

Think big, start small. Let’s do our bit and teach our kids to manage waste effectively at home by recycling it. This serves a dual purpose by making our planet greener and imbibing good qualities amongst youngsters, such as the following;

#1 Taking Care of the Planet

Talk to your child about how clean the lakes and rivers would be if people were responsible enough not to litter these gifts of nature. Explain to them how fish and other animals choke to death, by consuming disposed plastic waste. Make it a practice to have a small compost area in your gardens and collect all biodegradable waste, so that it can be processed and used as manure for shrubs in the lawn.

#2 Best out of Waste

Reusing old containers and making a DIY piggy bank for your kiddo, or using it as a bird feeder, are some excellent ideas you can implement. Overgrown clothes and bedsheets can be modified into a cloth carry bag, which will never go out of trend! Cardboard boxes can be beautifully transformed into jewelry boxes or be remodeled into a pencil stand. Even the world famous Dubai Expo 2020, the largest event in the Middle East, followed sustainable practices by incorporating acts that promote reducing, reuse, & recycling of waste

#3 Conscious Shoppers

Running to the store to buy every little small trinket, kitchen item, home decor product, could be eliminated, if you mastered the art of recycling. Children should be told to be conscious about spending money on unnecessary needs & desires, and purchase only necessities. In this way, there will be less burden on mass production, which is the main reason for our ill-environment today.

#4 Practice Giving

Giving is an act that is far more gratifying than taking or receiving. This lesson can be taught to kids by forming a habit of passing-on clothes, shoes, and toys to the needy. For special occasions such as birthdays, instead of hosting a lavish party, children must be taught to keep the celebrations minimal, and spend the money on donating anything meaningful such as LEGO® Education kits to the less privileged students at a government institution or NGO such as, the Children’s Hope Foundation in the UAE.

#5 Creativity & Inventiveness

When children think hard of ways to use discarded goods and convert them into more valuable things, they make good use of their brain-cells. Some may even discover their hidden potential of being good at art & craft, and consider pursuing it as a career later on in life. Innovation and creative talents go a long way in fostering healthy problem-solving skills amongst youngsters and developing an ability to look at things from different perspectives.

So, whether you belong to the US, are Indian, or are a part of the GCC region, let’s vouch for being responsible Earth Ninjas. Reduce, reuse, and recycle should be our everlasting motto all through our lives.