Towne Meadow Elementary Students - Kids Against Crayon Waste
Towne Meadow Elementary School students launched a crayon recycling program at their school to teach about the endless possibilities for reusing and recycling even unusual items. They also chose to purchase recycled crayons from the same factory that recycled their crayons.
Because so many used and broken crayons were thrown into the trash at the close of the year, students focused on collecting crayons during the final weeks of the school.
It was fun for the kids to see all of the crayons in the big boxes. The students had never seen that many crayons in one place before.
The students of Towne Meadow used a scale to weigh the crayons. They were amazed that they were able to divert 150 pounds of crayons from the landfill!
The students sent the crayons to Crazy Crayons for recycling. They also budgeted for some new recycled crayons to be purchased from Crazy Crayons to teach about the importance of buying recycled items.
These ambitious students put up posters and made a video announcement to notify the students about their project. They then placed a large collection box in the Art Room.
After making announcements and collecting the crayons, the kids then had the job of sorting the reusable crayons from those that were to be sent for recycling. They made this work fun by listening to music as they sorted.
Sixty pounds of crayons were given to Mr. Lamie, the Art teacher, while ninety pounds of crayons were sent to be recycled into new crayons and fire starters.
Stacked one on top of the other the boxes of crayons collected were taller than the students doing the project. They concluded that all 700 students at their school were impacted by their project.