Raise Awareness of Recycling Schemes
How to Raise Awareness of New Recycling System
There are a number of ways in which you can raise awareness of new recycling practices within your school/college. This will help to prevent any barriers that may discourage staff or students from supporting the initiative. Ideas include:
- Identifying champions. There may be a group of students within your school that already have a positive and proactive approach to recycling and may be willing to form a recycling Champions Team to raise awareness amongst students and staff. The best option may be to involve groups that already exist in your school, such as the Pupil Council or Eco Committee if you are an Eco School.
- Show by example. It will be important for staff and prefects to show by example and be seen to actively recycle.
Make sure that everyone feels involved, as lack of involvement can sometimes act as a potential barrier that prevents everyone from taking part in a new scheme. A variety of techniques can be used to involve people, such as:
- Involving students in emptying the classroom recycle bins
- Displaying awareness raising posters
- Set targets and publicise your success to pupils. For example, have a recycling information board which is updated with monthly figures of how much waste you are recycling, as well as recycling tips.
- Ensure that your recycling updates and achievements are featured in your school's newsletters and website.
- Rewarding or incentivising pupils for their successes, such as offering a recycled prize for the class that generates the least waste for disposal. There are some schemes where you can get cash for cans when you collect aluminium cans in great volume.
- Inviting guest speakers from your local council's waste team to speak to the pupils about recycling.
- Organising a school trip to a Materials Recycling Facility or a reprocessor to hear what happens to the products as they pass through the recycling journey.
When you successfully implement a recycling scheme into your school, you may want to consider taking further steps to reduce or prevent the school waste that you produce. Reducing or preventing waste is the most efficient and cost-effective way to deal with your school waste. Click here to see how some young people are leading the way in recycling events.
Why not have a look at our case studies section to see how different schools/colleges are rethinking their waste.
