9 Ways to Make Recycling Fun and Easy

 

 

This school year, one of our family goals is to make a bigger effort to reduce, reuse and recycle. We want to enjoy the world around us and we can’t do that if we are swimming in stuff or our landfills become full so we have come up with some easy and fun ways to recycle! Find our tips and how to make our Easy Recycling Station as well as our recycled Fairy Garden below!

• It’s never to late to start recycling! Make Recycling part of your routine with the new school year!
• Set up a recycle station in your home to make it easy to recycle! Put it in a convenient place. The easier you make it on yourself to recycle, the more likely you will be to do it! The Recycle station below can be made for just a couple dollars in a few minutes!

Easy Recycle Station 

You will need:

• Two laundry baskets from the dollar store
• The words Plastic and Paper typed on a piece of cardstock
• Scissors
• a laminator and laminating sheet
• a hole punch
• zip ties

Cut out the words and laminate them separately.

Cut the words out again and punch two holes into the top of each one.

Use zip ties to secure the labels. Put the recycle station by your trash can or somewhere else convenient to help remind you and your kids to recycle!

• Remember to rinse your recyclables– If things become moldy they often can’t be recycled. So avoid this by rinsing things out before you toss them into your recycle bin.
• Do recycle aluminum cans, food cans, glass bottles, cereal boxes and food boxes, juice cartons and milk jugs. Newspapers, junk mail and magazines. Aluminum foil and cardboard.
• Don’t recycle but try to donate ceramics, glassware and pots and pans.
• Find a place to recycle your batteries.
• Avoid items that are hard to recycle- Items such as plastic forks and knives can be really hard to recycle so use regular cutlery instead.
• Find programs to recycle other items. Most curbside collections don’t take plastic grocery sacks but a lot of grocery stores do! Save them and bring them back to the store.
• Look for ways to reuse the things you have. My daughters really wanted a fairy garden but instead of running to the store and buying more things that might end up in a land fill later on, we created a fun and colorful fairy garden using things we have on hand! Find the instructions for our Fairy Garden below.

 

Whether you have been recycling for years or are just getting started with recycling, PepsiCo Recycle Rally is perfect for getting students at k-12 schools excited about recycling! Recycle Rally provides the resources schools need to make recycling happen and fun incentives to keep the excitement going.  With PepsiCo Recycle Rally, schools and families can download posters, lessons and certificates to get their program started. Then they can track their progress, earn rewards and set goals! There are even frequent opportunities to share their creativity and enthusiasm for recycling and be entered to win fun prizes!

Any adult affiliated with a school can sign up (a principal, teacher or PTA member) and start benefiting from the program right away! The program is absolutely free to use at your school.

Plastic Bottle Fairy Houses

This fun and colorful Fairy Garden was so easy to make and I LOVE that it used things that we already had. Upcycling is one of my favorite ways to get creative!

You will need:

• plastic bottles emptied and dried
• spray paint or acrylic paint and a foam brush
• scissors
• hot glue
• buttons or gems
• a lighter

Start by cutting the bottom off of the water bottle. Cut the top off the bottle leaving a section of plastic from the middle that you can use for flowers. Cut a design on the bottom edge of the top of the bottle. Some design ideas for the bottom edge include a zig-zag, a rounded petal pattern or even long tulip like leaves.

Cut a door in the bottom section of your water bottle. You can cut a circle or a square out, whatever is easier for you. Paint the bottle with either spray paint or acrylic paint and a brush.

After your fairy house is dry from the paint, add a line of hot glut around the bottom party of the house and then place the top of the house on. This will glue the two pieces together. Now you can make fun flowers and decorations for your house!

For the small flowers, cut a circle out of the extra plastic you had left over from making the house. Add fringe to the circle by making a cut every so often in the circle. Use a lighter to melt the edges so they curl in on themselves. Spray paint the flower and then add a gem or a button to the center.

 

For the large red flower, cut the bottom off of another water bottle. Paint it whatever color you want and then add a button or gem to the middle of it. I absolutely love these second flowers because they are SO easy to make!

 

What things do you do to make recycling easier in your house? You can find more ideas on how to get your family and schools excited about recycling here!