Recycling At Your Day Care
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Both my day care and personal abode have seen my attempts
at being as ‘green’ as possible in recent years. It’s not that
long since I was making the glorious fortnightly trip to the recycling
center with my meticulously divided waste before the advent of
curbside collection. My feeble attempts at preserving the environment
were, I felt, the least I could do as a polluting, wasteful
human.
These attempts extend to the education of the next
generation in ecological issues at my day care. The kids are aware of,
and involved in, the daily routines that make up our recycling efforts
and that’s in addition to incorporating same into their class
lessons. We are constantly reminding them not to waste power or heat,
they are familiar with the different bins for paper, glass etc and
they know what the function of a compost heap.
We use various fun learning games
to instil this knowledge into the kids (where does paper come from,
which bin does the waste paper go into) and it is a lot easier than
you might think. Children are like little sponges and they are open to
new concepts and ideas. Their enthusiasm is infectious and goes a long
way towards changing more rigid mindsets outside the day care – I
have had quite a few parents tell how they got into trouble at home
for not recycling! I love it!!
We make gentle recommendations to parents to
choose products based on the recyclibility of the packaging when they
send in store bought snacks. Examples might be buying certain goods in
larger containers or in cardboard instead of plastic packs i.e.
yogurt, raisins and recycling juice bottles. The kids get involved via
an art project that incorporates pictures of more environmentally
friendly containers.
Every day care owner knows how many batteries are required for all
those annoying…er educational toys!! We bought a recharger, reuse
our batteries and save money. If you do have a cache of old batteries
lying around take them to a local battery recycling depot (there are
lots around).
It takes a little extra thought and effort but, with a combined
effort involving all those small changes we can make a huge
difference. As day care operators we have a fantastic opportunity to
mould little minds, to make environmental awareness second nature to
kids. Besides, you don't want a telling off from a preschooler!!
Fiona Lohrenz draws on her 10 years of running a day care
to write articles on all aspects of child care. She also
pours this wisdom into her childcare website and has used
it to produce a 'How to Start a ChildCare Business' DVD
guide: www.startchildcare.com
Fiona can be found at her website:
http://www.childcareonly.com | 
