Easy Recycling Activities for Kids
As some area's in Australia start rolling our our new recycling systems in an attempt to reduce waste and encourage more recycling we thought we would send you some free fun printables to help your little ones get use to the new system as well as hopefully help you in some capacity! (Here's to hoping, right?)
As you all are aware, if you have been following My Creative Box for a while we have made so many changes to our products and systems to reduce waste and use more environmentally sustainable products where we can. We are very active in this space and can't wait to continually roll out new things to make a bigger impact.
Our family has been using the new recycling system for about 6 months now and I can definitely say I am shocked about how many things are not able to be recycled and also the amount of food waste we can now add to compost instead of waste. We are continuing to learn though and would love for you to share what you know with us x
Did you know that:
recycling glass saves 75% of the energy needed to create a new glass jar from scratch
the average home uses 6 trees worth of paper every year
recycling one aluminium can saves enough power to run your TV for 3 hours!
This fun free printable will help you talk to your children about recycling. Once you have it printed, colour in all the recyclable materials, cut them out and then sort the pieces into the right recycling bin. For toddlers parent might like to cut out the objects and just encourage a simple sorting activity.
Check out our Favourite Recycled Crafts for Kids
Here are 6 fun activities you can do with your kids that will encourage them to recycle and reuse items you will likely have at your house.
1. Being able to reuse art and craft supplies is great. We use a lot of supplies in our house, and I always feel bad when it comes time to throw them out. Instead of throwing markers out when they’re just not working that great anymore, try this fun colour experiment from @hellowonderfulco.
2. Have your children outgrown many of their toys? My son has outgrown his old trucks and diggers. Turning these old toy trucks and vehicles into planters makes for a fun gardening activity with kids!
3. Did you know that milk bottle tops can not be recycled, and that they are disposed as general waste! We have an abundance of milk bottle tops stored away at home. This fun colour sorting activity is a super easy way to use up those bottle tops lying around and a fun way to learn about colours.
4. Egg cartons are something most families recycle every week and this is a great colour sorting activity for little ones! Help your child practise their fine motor skills by adding safe tony or tweezers and a spoon.
5. Collect a range of recycle materials and add them to a tray of sensory rice or other pantry staples you have with spoons and measuring cups as a fun measuring sensory play activity that will keep them busy for ages.
6. Cardboard roll city! Use recycled boxes and cardboard rolls to make a city. These would work so well with our recent Transport Creative Box for our toddlers! But would also work well in small world play with people and animal figures.
