Lesson video

- Today's lesson is called, Reuse, reduce, recycle.

We will be looking at ways to help our environment.

Within this lesson, we will learn what the three Rs mean, we will look at a top European recycling country, we will discover what a landfill is, you will take part in our very own gameshow, and you will complete your very own recycling project.

In this lesson, you will need some plain paper and some lined paper, a pen or a pencil, some coloured pencils, your eco warrior brains, and some cardboard tubes or toilet roll tubes.

Pause the video and collect your items now.

Hello, children.

My name is Mrs Walsh, and welcome to this lesson, Reuse, reduce, recycle.

Now, if you don't know what the three Rs are yet, don't worry, you soon will do.

Let's flip over to the map and see whereabouts in the world we are going.

Okay, let's take a look.

Okay, does anybody know what continent that one is? Yes.

Well done, Europe.

So whereabouts in Europe could that be? Oh! No, not France, close though.

Anybody else wants to take a guess? Brilliant.

Who said Germany? That is exactly where we're going, but I wonder why we are going to Germany? Here are some top facts about Germany, maybe this will help us.

Germany is in the process of phasing out nuclear power plants, Germany is a top recycling country in the world.

Ah, okay, recycling.

Germany recycles 56% of its waste.

56%! That's more than half.

Whoa! Germany have a green dot system.

I'm not quite sure what that is yet, I'm sure we'll find out.

And this is where it gets interesting, Germany have six different recycling bins.

Well, I only have three.

How many do you have? 1? 2, 3, same as me? Can you imagine having six? That sounds like a real top recycling country, doesn't it, boys and girls? I want to share with you, boys and girls, a little poem, and I hope it really makes you think about your rubbish before you drop it on the floor.

Are you ready? Okay, listen carefully.

When you throw your rubbish on the floor and the recycle triangle you choose to ignore means our habitat are ruined and we're not safe.

It does not affect you, your homes or your space.

The toxins within your rubbish harms our health.

So before you drop, please think to oneself.

You can make the difference to our survival by practising reduce, reuse and recycle.

Oh, those poor animals.

That really makes you think about things, doesn't it, children? Who's guilty of throwing their rubbish on the floor? Go on, don't be shy, I'm not gonna shout, because now is the time to make a difference.

Pause the video and make a list of all the things that you might throw away that you probably shouldn't do.

I'll give you an example.

I use to throw away plastic bottles, and then I learned how important recycling was.

So now I just throw them in the recycling bin and I know that I'm doing my job correctly.

You pause the video and make your list.

What kind of things did we get? Bottles, yeah.

What else did we get? Metal tins, yeah, that's a good one.

So you're going to start recycling those now, aren't you? Good.

And what else did we get? Paper.

Yes, we use a lot of paper.

Okay, so now we're going to move on, and I want to ask you who knows where your rubbish goes? Put your hands up.

A few of you.

Hm, okay.

So for those of you that don't know, your rubbish goes to a landfill.

And a landfill looks like this, or this.

So there are two versions of a landfill.

One version is where the rubbish goes on top of the earth, and another version is where the rubbish goes inside the earth.

So a big hole is built and all the rubbish that doesn't get recycled goes into a landfill.

Let's look at this in more detail.

So if you look at these two pictures here, you can clearly see that one is a hole dug into the ground and the second picture shows that the rubbish is placed on top of the ground.

So that is technically how a landfill works.

So what happens with a landfill where they dig a hole in the ground? They place a liner inside it.

So if you think about your bin at home and you put a bag in it and all the rubbish goes into the bag, you take that bag out and then you put that into your big dustbin.

Now, I question this, and I'm going to ask you children.

Do you think if you put a big liner inside that hole in the ground, do you think that that would protect the earth? No? Neither do I, and we're going to find out why.

So here's why, boys and girls.

If you look at this landfill, it's been filled with lots and lots of rubbish.

And all the time, the rain comes and it seeps through all that rubbish.

And at the bottom, you can see a little pool of red, toxic liquid.

Now, that toxic liquid is called leachate, and that is very, very damaging to the earth.

And if you can see, it is seeped through the liner of the landfill.

Now that leachate seeps into the ground where we grow our vegetables.

And if you think about the image, look at where the toxic gas is going.

So it comes from the ground and it goes up and up into the air.

And that is the air that we breathe, and that is why it's so important that we recycle as much rubbish as we can.

So let's take a look at all the rubbish that goes into a landfill.

We have cartons, if we don't recycle them, we've got bottles, food packaging.

Yes.

Who said that? Well done, give yourself a pat on the back.

So food packaging, we can check whether the package is recyclable after we've opened it, because there'll be a little triangle, and that means that you can recycle it.

Food waste.

Yes, that will make your bins smelly as well so it's always better to recycle food the appropriate way.

And old cloths.

Absolutely.

So we'll find out how we can recycle these in a little while.

What I'd like you to do is pause the video, and I would like you to think about what you can do to ensure that the rubbish in that landfill is reduced.

Pause the video whilst you do this.

Okay, what did you come up with? Yes, give clothes to a charity shop, recycle your plastic bottles, buy food with less packaging, recycle our paper.

We could actually reuse our paper and you can make a scrapbook out of it.

So we don't necessarily need to throw it away all the time.

If we can turn it into a scrapbook, it's always good to do that.

And we could make a compost heap out of vegetable peelings.

Did you have any more? If you haven't got any of these, just add them to your list.

This is what a recycling centre looks like.

This is where all your rubbish goes that is recycled.

Here's a recap.

Card, recycle it, plastic carrier bag, you need to reduce these and perhaps think about using a bag for life, one that you can use again and again.

Glass jar, you can either recycle it or you can make it into something really pretty so you can reuse it.

Think about making a money box.

Magazines, definitely recycle them, but don't forget to take out the staples.

Clothes, you can recycle them or you can reuse them.

So you cut them up into little small little pieces to make cleaning rags, or like Mike Wichel said, you can use them for your siblings or give them to a charity shop.

And batteries.

You need to recycle these, and in plenty of shops, there are little bins by the till that you can put your batteries into.

Or if you have rechargeable batteries, you can use them again and again and again.

Okay, now it's your turn.

What you need to do, children, is you need to collect your plain paper and your cardboard tubes.

Okay.

Now, what I did here, and what you need to do, is you need to decorate your plain piece of paper into something really, really exciting.

So I chose to do the word Recycle all over it.

Pause the video and do that now.

Now what you need to do, is you need to wrap your piece of paper around your cardboard tube so that it covers the whole of the tube, and then you can fold the tops down and the bottoms up so that the piece of paper stays in place.

Pause the video and do that now.

The next thing you need to do is, I chose to cut my toilet tube up.

So I made a larger piece and a smaller piece.

And the smaller piece is going to be for my little bits of rubber and staples.

So you can choose to do that, but you don't have to, you can just make another tube.

But pause the video and do this now, please.

And finally, you put it all together and you make your very own recycled desk tidy.

I chose to find a base for my desk tidy, and I used an old book that I don't use anymore.

So all I did is cover it in fancy wrapping paper.

You can do this too.

Or if you haven't got a book, you can use an empty cereal box, and that will be just as good.

So find an empty cereal box, cover it in wrapping paper or paper that you decided to design yourself, and pop it on the bottom of your desk tidy, and it will make it stand up better.

The list is endless when it comes to recycling project, children.

Why don't you get an old pair of socks and make your very own puppets and then you can put on a puppet show.

Or you could get your empty milk cartons, and you could poke holes in the lid to make your very own watering can.

Or you can even cut the tops off and fill them with soil and plants some plants, make your home more beautiful.

The list is endless.

Don't forget to take some pictures.

I can't wait to see what recycling projects you come up with, children.

I'd love to see pictures of them.

If you'd like to, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.