It seems like for the last 50 years I’ve been thinking about recycling. I practice it at home and have continued to encourage recycling at school. Two months ago I wrote a blog about our composting program. Since that time, we’ve branched out in our recycling efforts. We discovered a company called Ridwell that offers a service to recycle different types of plastics beyond the usual #1 and #2 containers. Ridwell has different programs, and the one we’re enrolled in enables us to collect both soft (e.g. Ziploc bags, bubble wrap, shrink wrap) and multi-layer plastics (e.g. bar wrappers, bulk food packaging, chip bags, candy wrappers), all of which have previously been thrown in the trash.
To collect multi-layer plastics, we have two options at school. First, each of our elementary classes has a Ridwell bag in their room where students place their used wrappers from snacks and lunch. The other option is to place clean, used wrappers in the container by the front door in the office. Once we collect enough items to fill a bag, we’ll send it off to Ridwell and they’ll send us a replacement bag.
In the very near future, we’ll have a container behind the dumpster wall for recycling soft plastics (see list above). You’ll be able to place items directly into the bin. Or if you’d prefer, you can leave them in the box in the office and we’ll place them in the bin for you. Additionally, if you’d like to bring compost from home, you can empty it directly into the compost bin (please don’t put plastic bags in the compost bin).
We welcome you to bring items from home for us to recycle at school. It’s one more way we can help the planet and leave our future generations a healthier place to live and grow. If you have any questions, please reach out to mary@awakeningseedschool.org.