This week, as we come to the end of our materials science topic, we welcomed members of the Leeds City Council Waste Recycling team to talk about waste and recycling.
Firstly, we learnt about the different bins we have at home and what should and shouldn’t be put in each bin.
We’re used to the 8Rs of learning but in terms of waste, we learnt about the 4Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle and recover.
‘To reduce food waste, you could put your leftovers in a box and have it later.’ Betsy
‘If your clothes are too small, you could take them to a charity shop to be reused.’ Evie
Next, we did a transformation activity to look at how some materials can be reused. Did you know Tetrapaks (such as some milk and juice cartons) can’t be recycled in the green bin but there are now recycling points, around Leeds, where they can be taken.
We followed a set of instructions to transform a Tetrapak into a purse!
How do we manage waste at school?
- Each class has a recycle bin to recycle paper and card.
- We reuse paper by having a scrap paper drawer in class.
- We recycle our milk cartons every day.
- We try to reduce food waste by allowing children to choose their main meal choice at the start of the day.
- In Year 2, we have our Ecobrick for any plastic that can’t be recycled.
Next, we met some some of our own waste recycling advisors who had to deal with some waste scenarios.
We finished with Busta and Pong’s song to recap the important message of recycling.
What a great informative session we had!
Here are some questions to discuss with your child.
- What colour is the recycling bin in Leeds?
- Which bin should you put nappies in?
- Which bin should you put food waste in?
- What is the brown bin for?
- Where could we take old clothes?
- Where does glass go?
- What can be reused?
- What are the 4Rs?
- Why do we need to recycle?
