Tell Recycle Now how you encourage your DCs to recycle for a chance to win an iPad mini! NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

We are all aware of the importance of recycling, but it can be easy to forget when we’re all so busy browsing MN threads. Recycle Now has teamed up with Wastebuster to launch a campaign to encourage more families to recycle more items, more often. They would like to hear how you encourage your DCs to recycle and for you to take part in their Home Recycling Challenge.

Here’s what Recycle Now has to say: “To help kids recycle more at home, we’ve created the Home Recycling Challenge, which includes the chance to win great prizes. Here’s how you and your family can take part:

Step 1 – visit wastebuster.co.uk/homerecyclingchallenge and download the competition sheet/ recycling poster template

Step 2 – use the recycling locator with your kids to find out what can and can’t be recycled in your area and use this information to fill in the blanks and decorate on your poster

Step 3 – stick the poster up in your home and take a family selfie

Step 4 – upload your photo to the Recycling Hero Hall of Fame to be in with a shot of winning some great prizes!

Every family has a different routine, and we want to hear about how you teach your kids good recycling habits that they can take forward into later life. Did you know that you can recycle bleach bottles, shampoo bottles, kitchen cleaner bottles, baby food jars, aerosol deodorants, face cream pots and dishwasher tablet boxes?”

Have a look at their video here

So how do you get your DC to recycle at home? Maybe you make a game of it by seeing who can recycle the most? Perhaps you make it easier to sort by having stickered bins? Do you take it in turns or is it one person’s job? Or do you give your DC rewards for recycling?

Please share on this thread how you encourage your DCs to recycle below and you will be entered into the prize draw to where one winner will win an iPad mini.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T and Cs Apply

I always encourage recycling with my kids and they know some of the things get recycled make other items

I'm very lucky because my daughter is very environmentally conscious. Maybe that's because she's always seen me recycle - we just always preach waste not, want not in our house :) we reuse most things!

My husband has made the most amazing wooden boxes that fit reusable bags. All our paper and plastic goes in them. They look amazing and once full you can just lift the bag out and emty it in to the recycle bin outside. It is amazing how much packaging can be recycled.

The boys help with the recycling. Like a quiz they take it in turns to get an item and say what bin it goes in. Then there's the challenge to see who can get most in their recycling bin by stamping and crushing what's in there.

I don't try and bribe her with other things to do it. I just tell her why we do it and she will also watch the bin lorry come too.

We have a game every week, and the kids collect a bag full each as the week goes on and see who can get the fullest bag by bin day wins a wee prize. Really spurs them on and it can get competitive between them lol

we all recycle, we have been doing it for ages, the kids have done it from an early age so theydon't know any different

I got them to make labels for the recycling boxes so that they know what goes in them. We made it into a game and they are the "recycling bosses".

Recycling has never been a problem. We have a bottle bank near us and my son is always checking whether we have any bottles he can smash, and of course Peppa Pig is very influential.

Show and Tell is the answer for this issue and others like them. Show them as well as tell them and encourage them to think before they throw anything out.

We make recycling a normal part of everyday life.

They've been good from the get-go because it's something they've always been around. We have different boxes for everything. Both the boys like to help me take out the recycling and then sort it into the correct box every couple of days.
They enjoy it! It's a good thing that now it's just become the norm, so they will grow up being aware of that and continue on when they're older.

I have never had any problems with recycling. It has just become a habit that everyone does. The only problem I have is with my daughter not washing out milk cartons first. The dogs love to play with them so I get her to wash them out and the give them to the dogs to play with first. Xx

We like to try and make fun things out of rubbish, to show how things can be repurposed and re-used!

Afraid as the DC have got a bit older they seem less interested (hope they will grow out of that as the 'lazy years' pass) so I put a bag in their room and at least they put bits in there and I put in the main recylce bin.

we have different recycling bins, don't need to encourage them as they've always had to put their rubbish in different bins according to what it is.

It's just part of our daily routine. Sometimes DD will check with me what something is made of so that she puts it in the right bin but I've never had to offer incentives.

We have recycling bins and I always reward them when the bins are full.

We try to recycle everything thing and my child knows exactly which item goes in which bin as we have always done it from an early age.

We recycle everything including food.

My daughter is 4 and she knows all recyclable things and takes them to our recycling box. If she's not sure about something she will always ask.

The children know we recycle as much as we can and enjoy competing to find if something is recyclable

I don't have to encourage as mine learnt about it at school and are literally obsessed with our recycling boxes (had to stop her going through the bin one day to check if she could find anything mummy hadn't recycled)

I like the idea of turning it into a game though if you needed to

TBH my DD needed no encouragement. After a couple of years of being told the bin was dirty and she couldn't touch it, to then be entrusted with the responsibility of throwing something away was HUGELY EXCITING, () and she likes telling me which bin she thinks things should go in - and she mostly gets it right.

She also likes using her left/right to tell me which bin is the right one- more an exercise in knowing left and right though, the recycling is the easier bit!

Thanks for all the tips etc - PorridgeAgainAbney wins the iPad!