Recycling is more engaging at home when you involve your children. Teaching your kids how to recycle is a great way to teach them good habits, and show them how recycling can improve our environment. Did you know that the average Canadian family wastes nearly 150 pounds of paper each year?

We Canadians have improved our waste diversion from landfills over the last decade. However, we only improved our residential waste diversion by 2.8% (Statistics Canada). So how can we make waste diversion at home more engaging, and fun for the entire family?

There is a lot of opportunities to show children how paper is made, and how recycling paper can save forests. You can also show them that plastic containers can be reused and recycled, instead of thrown away. Marine waste is the biggest challenge in 2018, and international organizations are trying to find ways to reduce marine waste. You might think that there is only so much you can do locally or within your home. But the truth is, every little thing you start doing – recycling, teaching your children – will snowball into great things.

So here are 3 ways you can encourage conversations about recycling at home with your children:

Personalize your waste bins

Personalizing your waste bins at home with your children!

Make personalized bins for glass, plastic, and paper recycling can go a long way. This teaches your children the importance of recycling and provides them a sense of ownership. They can become proud of their work, and be more willing to recycle when you’re not around to supervise.

Give your children coloring challenges like coloring in images of waste products and gluing them to the bin. Or, you can create a recycling goal chart above each bin and create a competition with your children to see how much you recycle at the end of each week. If your kids are interested, you can also host challenges where they compete against each other or even their neighbour’s kids, to see who recycle the most in a week!

Visit a recycling center

Recycling centers often host tours for people interested in learning more about what goes on in a depot. These can be engaging events for kids to attend!

Take your family on a trip to the local recycling center or depot is a great way to introduce your children to recycling. You can use the opportunity to show your children that there are recycling centers nearby, so they remember it in the future. You can also give them homework when they get home to look up other centers and see where they are located. On the tour, you can meet the staff, have your children prepare questions to ask them and learn how recycled materials are made. You can also ask the centers to see if your family or children can volunteer.

Repurpose Waste into Educational Toys

Explore different ways for your children to play – turn something old new, instead of buying the latest, fanciest toy.

Some fun activities include turning old water bottles or soda bottles into plant gardens, that your children can watch the plants grow. You can turn old textiles into jump ropes or kites, depending on how crafty you are. This is an excellent way to show children that you don’t need brand new toys all the time. Something made from home can also be just as fun!

What are some of the cool ways you’ve taught your children how to recycle? Share it with us on Twitter!

Canadian Mattress Recycling is a 100% locally-owned BC company with a team of employees dedicated to customer service and environmental preservation through recycling. We are located in the middle of Metro Vancouver on Annacis Island on Delta, BC and serve the entire Lower Mainland region and beyond. We are winners of the Green Business of the Year in 2016 by the Delta Chamber of Commerce.

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Electronic Recycling – In today’s world, electronics have become a vital part of our life, we use them every day for endless needs such as grooming, entertainment, learning etc. When electronics are in the prime of their life cycle, they are very cool and indispensable, but when their life cycle is expired, they become a burden. It takes creativity to keep electronics out of trouble at their expired stage.

Ignoring electronic recycling has its own consequences. They contain some level of toxic materials which could be life-threatening. Therefore, abandoning them in landfills poses a threat to the safety and health of the community as well as the environment.

There are creative ways to recycle electronics and that is what this article is all about. These techniques make these electronic wastes to be relevant again and keep it off tech graveyards and landfills after they are expired.

Crafts

Crafting with electronic waste keep them off unwanted places and placing them into the hands of individuals that can extract new uses from them in offices and homes. As users find creative waste to give electronics and gadgets second chances, crafting with electronic waste could easily turn into the premiere hobby of the 21st century.

The world of crafting with electronic wastes is both intriguing and diverse. The choices range from computer monitor garden planters to keyboard cup holders etc.

Art

Electronic waste offers a meaty base material for keen artworks for those with the required skills and talent. For a long time now, designers, performance artist and sculptors have the passion to turn these wastes into artistic works. As the need of recycling electronics increases, these creative acts will take on new meaning and value. Turning electronic wastes into creative arts is a way to up-cycle life-threatening materials, materials that places the environment at risk and make it valuable and noteworthy again in the community.

New Gadgets

Similar to making crafts with electronic wastes, creating new tinker toys with old gadgets is still another method of making expired devices useful again. For tinkerers, the possibility of making new or even smarter electronics could be attained. Reverse engineering could transform an outdated computer into robots powered by solar energy. Other educational, household and office gadgets and tools can be created from electronic wastes.

Education

Electronic recycling also serves as a good opportunity to advance education through creativity. Nonprofit organizations and schools have acknowledged the risk posed by electronic waste and are encouraging students to think creatively and critically about how to reuse them. Across many nations, individual learn how to critically handle electronic issues through workshops and this is becoming more popular. This has further created good chance for communities and schools to raise funds and better inform residents about efficient ways to recycle electronic waste. Donating expired devices to schools prevents environmental harm and keeps the devices in circulation.

In Conclusion

Creatively recycling electronics is not only necessary, it is also interesting. As technology is fast advancing, new gadgets are displacing old ones at a rapid pace. Devising creative ways to recycle electronics can be a good solution to the never-ending e-waste crisis.

To find out where you can recycle your electronics click here.

What happens in a recycling plant depends on the material that the recycling plant handles. This summary is based on a recycling plant that can handle household recycling as well as small industrial material and recycling that is collected by individuals.

The basic steps are inspection, deposit, separation, processing, and transport.

Inspection

Not all material can be recycled. Aluminum cans that have been collected from lakes and contain rocky mud will damage the recycling plant equipment. These will be rejected. The plant is also tasked with not taking any material that is suspect to have been stolen.

Some materials cannot be recycled. The recycling plant may have a process to handle such materials and have an environmentally safe method of disposal. In addition, inspection prevents plant workers from being exposed to dangers unnecessarily.

Deposit

The size of the load determines where the materials will be deposited. Areas of the recycling plant are designated for paper, aluminum, steel, and other materials that arrive in bulk.

Separation

Recycling that is brought in by individuals is separated by hand when the person delivers the material to the recycling plant. Small industrial recycling waste is sorted at a weighing station and directed to the proper area of the plant for that material.

Recycling from homes goes through a much more elaborate process. Materials are separated from machines into useable materials and materials that cannot be used. The final inspection must be done by hand.

Paper, aluminum cans, steel cans, electrical wire, motors, and any material that can be recycled are segregated into areas of the recycling plant for holding. Containers are designated for each type of material so that moving large quantities is safe and efficient.

Processing

Paper, aluminum cans, steel, plastics, wire, and some electronics are processed with machinery to make the material more compact for shipping. Aluminum cans are shredded into very small pieces and squashed into blocks that can weigh a few tons. Paper is compacted in presses. The idea is to be able to deliver as much material as possible in one vehicle. This makes the recycling plant more profitable.

Transport

The compacted material and the materials that cannot be compacted are prepared for shipment. The recycling plant has a contract with a trucking company or with the company that buys the material to transport the recycling to its final destination. Aluminum companies buy the aluminum cans and use them to make new aluminum cans. Paper is reused as well.

What goes on in a recycling plant is a complex and intricate endeavor. The skills required include metallurgy, an understanding of the law, and a high degree of customer relations skills. Mechanics with specialized training are required to work with unique equipment.

You can find a recycling center close to you here.