How to Teach Your Young Child to Recycle

Making Recycling a Part of Your Family's Daily Activities

Dec 5, 2008 Pamela Palmer

Recycling is a daily activity in adults lives. We also need to train our kids how to be stewards of the Earth by teaching them to be involved in recycling themselves.

Your family's recycling program can be broken down into small steps or chores that even the youngest child can enjoy participating in as a way to care for the Earth. It is an activity that you can integrate into their lives just like learning to make their own beds.

Educate and Train

Train your children about what types of objects are recyclable. Post a brochure or outline from your local government entity that explains what is eligible to be recycled in your area, perhaps on your refrigerator door. You can also check out websites such as LIME's How To Recycle Everything that explain other recyclable items and who to contact to recycle them.

Assign Age-Appropriate Chores

1. Make rinsing out jars, bottles, and cans a part of your child's involvement with clean-up from meals. Have a simple basket or container in your kitchen, where your child can store the cleaned items to recycle. Have them empty this basket into the main recycling bin every couple of days.
2. Give younger children, in particular, the job of being the "Recycling Police", and they will gladly enforce other family members, who may be throwing out items that could be recycled! It gives them a sense of ownership in the whole recycling process. They can also be in charge of bringing your reusable bags into the grocery store from the car.
3. Have a central location in your home where clean, dry recyclable paper can be disposed of and later be emptied by your child into the main paper recycling bin. Encourage them to use the backs of paper or scrap paper for drawing and other craft projects.
4. Don't forget bathrooms—add a small container under your bathroom sink to collect such items as washed-out shampoo bottles or empty toilet paper rolls. Have your child empty when it gets full.

Reduce and Reuse

Train your child about the benefits of reducing and reusing. Encourage them to reuse shoe boxes for collections or storing things in their bedrooms. Have them personalize their boxes by decorating their recycled containers themselves. Or your child can collect the colorful lids from plastic bottles, like milk jugs or juice bottles, to use in sorting games or crafts. Keep a basket on your counter where disinfected lids can be collected.

Expect the Need to Remind

Remind your children of the importance of reducing energy consumption by turning off lights and conserving water. It will take lots of verbal reminders, but soon they will be in the habit themselves of turning off lights as they leave a room.

Explore the Environment

And lastly, involve your child in learning about the environment and our responsibility to care for it by our daily actions. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has some great kid-friendly pages on caring for the environment, and specifically on recycling.

Teaching our children about recycling should be a normal part of growing up, like teaching them how to set the table or brush their teeth. It can be a fun, family experience for the youngest to the oldest member of your family.

The copyright of the article How to Teach Your Young Child to Recycle in Green/Simple Living is owned by Pamela Palmer. Permission to republish How to Teach Your Young Child to Recycle in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Recycle, Reduce, Reuse

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