Teaching our Children Clean Recycling with Recycling Crafts!

This post was sponsored by OCRRA as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

Do you recycle?! Have you considered how fun it can be to teach your children the importance of doing what's best for our world, to "Save the World a Little Each Day"? With Earth Day right around the corner, we're excited to share important recycling information and fun ways to get your children involved, along with some recycling crafts everyone can get in on!

I feel like we've done our fair share of moving in the last few years, between school, a job, more school, and another job. With every move, some of the first things I look for are the trash and recycling programs in the area. Every city seems to have a different way of doing things. National media even points out that because some areas do not have markets for the materials anymore, recycling isn't happening in many parts of the US. So should we just throw everything out?

When we recently moved to Onondaga County just over a year ago, we had lots of questions about how this community recycled and how we could be involved.  We looked up the Recycling 101 page on the OCRRA.org website and educated ourselves as a family as to what and how we were going to be recycling here. Onondaga County is still recycling and OCRRA, a not-for-profit public benefit corporation, has made the process of recycling much easier for our family because it provides a fantastic list of what should and should NOT be recycled.

For instance, did you know that plastic grocery bags should not be placed in your blue recycling bins? Along with plastic newspaper bags, plastic dry-cleaning bags, and plastic cereal bags, these kinds of plastics should be taken to recycling collection bins for film plastics at local stores. Tossing in items that aren't recyclable contaminates the recycling stream, and the cleaner this stream is, the more valuable it is. Up until I read this information on OCRRA.org, I was still putting loose plastic bags filled with smaller recyclables in my blue bin, thinking it was all recyclable. Not so! Another item I was often recycling was Styrofoam, but that is also on the NO list.

There are so many items that might be in the questionable category, where you could be unsure whether they can be recycled or not. Instead of "wish-cycling", where you toss it in the recycle bin in you're unsure, let's teach ourselves and our kids what is acceptable and not! 

I highly recommend visiting OCRRA.org to learn more about recycling (as well as composing!) here in Onondaga County. After the mess of moving in, we found ourselves with a full car load of extra things to get rid of, from moving boxes and packing paper to broken wire storage shelves. I looked up the guidelines on the OCRRA website and we were able to take everything to a drop-off location just 6 miles from our new home.

One of the most helpful things on the site is a searchable list of common household items and how to recycle or dispose of them. If you're ever in doubt, you can always look up the exact item (like paint cans or motor oil) and get the scoop on how to recycle or dispose of the item. If you don't have time to check it out, when in doubt, just throw it out. Best keep our recycling stream clean!

As a family, we focus a lot on recycling and reducing waste. We've taught the kids to break down and flatten all the pizza and cereal boxes. They know how to rinse out plastic bottles and jugs. We also have a contest going between the kids to see who can collect the most pop cans, which we take to can collectors on a regular basis. Before things get recycled, we love to use these kinds of things for art projects and games! An empty box becomes all sorts of imaginary things in our house. I believe it is important to teach our children about recycling because it is the world we are protecting! We do our part to leave the smallest footprint possible so that our children and grandchildren have as pure of a world as our ancestors before us!

Recycling Crafts for Kids

We're sharing a few of our favorite recycling crafts ideas here. Our first is an adorable bird feeder made from cartons!

ou will need one large carton (either milk or juice) and one small (like a cream or a standard lunch-size milk carton). Take the smaller carton and trace the bottom to make a diamond on top of the larger carton.

Cut out this square on the larger carton using a blade. Also, cut out the bottom of the smaller carton, just less than an inch deep.

Take the bottom of the smaller carton, cut it in half from corner to corner, then trim a little out of the middle so that it looks like a little roof. You can attach it to the larger carton with hot glue or even a stapler.

Time to paint! I've found that some paint has a difficult time adhering to the waxy surface of the carton, so I like to spray it with a base coat of primer or basic spray paint. After that, acrylic paint will go on great!

Finish it off by hot gluing thin sticks along the rooftops and adding a thicker stick through the bottom to act as a perch. String some twine along the top seal and fill with birdseed!

Next up, we made planters! You can make a planter out of most anything and the recycle bin is a treasure trove. Today, we're using tuna cans! They're so cute and squatty, and adorable with some big succulents inside.

Remove the lids with a can opener and apply a long piece of scotch tape on a slanted angle.

Spray with 2+ coats of metallic gold paint, let completely dry, then peel off the tape. I love the two-tone look of these metals together!

Don't forget to poke some holes in the bottom so they can drain. These are lovely on a window sill in even the coldest months of the year!

Of all the recycling crafts we've made over the years, these are my favorites: notes made from bottle lids!

Start with a bunch of lids found on items meant for the recycle bin -- milk jugs, creamer cartons, orange juice, etc.

Glue them onto foam sheets along with some foam details and googly eyes! These could be fun Valentine's, notes, get-well cards, gift tags, etc.!

Keep recycling and visit OCRRA.org! It's such a great resource for information on what to recycle! Let's help teach our children to recycle right by keeping the wrong things out and being intentional about what goes in