To think that school children in first world countries...

[HMSmostleaky]

...should have to do a field trip to a landfill and a recycling centre during their school career and some school work on where our waste comes from?

I think it might help teach restraint if children had to see how much was wasted every day.

I know schools have a lot to cover and this would be just one more thing, one more expense but I think it is more important to our survival than most things that are taught in school.

I agree! My local school does

Fab idea!

Better to take new parents to show them how much of it is nappies!

How much of it is nappies Lightbulbon?

Excellent idea OP and within 20 years or so, all new parents would have been too

We already do teach about it, however, doesn't"t mean they will change their behaviour. Parents are the single biggest issue.

Biggest influence, not issue (although that could have been a Freudian slip).

Yes, whathavei - I agree it's unlikely to change behaviours now, but to educate them for when they do control their own consumption

I agree with education in this area, but just saying it is already taught in schools. If people are still not disposing of waste ethically, others incentives are needed.

The local council used to have a program like that but it went when the funding became restricted.

I think the time/money would be better spent on sorting out over packaging.

IME, it is taught in schools but a bit half-heartedly. e.g the first thing our "green co-ordinator" did was order a load of badges for our ecowarriors to wear and the staff room Aircon is always left turned up to max for the benefit of an empty room

Letting DC see the landfill would be pretty powerful, I think even if it didn't have an immediate effect on people's habits.

I know that recycling etc is often taught at schools, but it is somewhat of an abstract topic. Looking at a massive pile of crap being plowed into the earth is a little more impacting than learning about recycling paper at school.

Like most schools we teach the 5 r s of recycling, we also have the children do litter duty.

But given the amount of parents that ring up and complain that their child shouldn't do it and the "fact" that no child in the school drops litter in the playground (we have asked them), even when you see them drop litter they deny it.

A trip to a landfill isn't going to do any good.

So when I note comes home asking for £5 for a trip to the landfill then no one on MN will complain?

I don't see why £5 for an educational trip to the landfill would get any more/less complaints than £5 for any other trip.

Surely it would be people complaining about the over use of paper for the letters that would get the complaints.