Teaching the Next Generation About Their Zero Waste Future

Since 1987, Eco-Cycle has coordinated the School Recycling and Environmental Education Program, currently funded by Boulder County, Boulder Valley School District, Broomfield County, City of Boulder, Town of Superior, Eco-Cycle, and various grant sources.

This program provides recycling collection for all 82 public schools in Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley School Districts. Each year, Eco-Cycle educators provide more than 1,600 science-based environmental presentations to students in these districts, reaching 55,000 preschool–12th-grade students every year.

A Unique, Effective Program 

It is the interworking of three facets that makes this program a success: providing recycling collection for every school, educating students on how and what to recycle through presentations and guidelines, and offering feedback reports on the amount of materials being recycled correctly. The success of the award-winning School Recycling and Environmental Education Program has made it a national model for others wanting to start similar projects.

Collection of Recyclables

Over 550 tons of office/classroom paper, cardboard, magazines, newspaper, aluminum, steel, plastic, and glass are recycled from the schools annually. This compares to 14.7 tons recycled in 1988—a 3,400% increase! As the collections have expanded, many schools have been able to cut their trash service by one-third, providing substantial savings to both districts.

Feedback to Schools

Individual schools have a recycling contact who receives monthly feedback on both the quantity and quality of materials recycled. The number of trees “saved” by their paper recycling is posted on their tree banner, a 2 x 3-foot “trees saved” thermometer. In addition, a few schools each year receive special recognition and prizes for doing an exceptional job with the program. The school recycling contacts are rewarded with luncheons and seminars on environmental issues to show appreciation for their work.

Environmental Education

Using age-specific group discussions, activities, slide shows, crafts, and games, our educational presentations and field trips help students understand the relationship between solid waste issues and many other environmental problems such as pollution, resource depletion, and deforestation. Other topics include buying recycled products, holiday and lunchtime waste reduction, litter prevention, composting, household hazardous waste awareness, forest ecology, rainforest issues, air quality, indoor air pollution, and energy conservation. The presentations are very popular, with the number given increasing from 180 in 1989 to approximately 1,600 annually.

Special Projects

To keep teachers excited about including us in their curriculum, we develop innovative, special projects each year. Some examples include:

• Kids Conference for the Earth, an all-day event that brought 170 children and parents together to participate in environmental workshops; 
• Rainforest and Recycling Fundraiser, where 6,000 students in 12 schools learned about the benefits of recycling to the rainforest and saved aluminum cans to raise money to adopt acres of rainforest;
• America’s Forest, Our Own Backyard, in which over 500 students in 18 classes learned about forestry and waste reduction before planting trees;
• Green Star Kids project, which motivated students at 51 schools to buy recycled products at back-to-school time;
• Waste Wise Conference, held at CU to educate secondary students on a variety of environmental issues;
• Waste-Free Lunch Contest, in which six schools compete to make the least lunch-time trash;
• Locker Leftovers project, in which students reduce waste at the end of the school year by recycling and donating to charity;
• and the Business Heroes Go For Zero tours of Zero Waste businesses for high school business classes.

Outreach Beyond Boulder County

For over two decades, we have been reaching out beyond the borders of Boulder County to help others establish school recycling in their communities. Over 300 teachers have been trained in our curriculum. During 1991-1993 we received EPA funding to develop and conduct all-day teacher trainings on solid waste issues, presented in collaboration with the University of Colorado. These were held at 11 different sites in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. In 1995 we created “Waste Not, Want Not,” the first four-day teacher training institute on solid waste. EPA funds provided travel stipends for teachers from around the state to participate. In addition, we have worked with the City of Denver and the Eastern Colorado Rural Development Council to train teachers in those communities.

In 1993, we developed “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: A Waste Reduction Activity Kit.” This 18-gallon trunk full of games, slide shows, and experiments has all the visual aids necessary for an educator to teach a one-week unit on solid waste. In 1994, we were honored to receive a grant from the Colorado Governor’s Office of Energy Conservation to place these kits in every school district in the state. There are currently over 1,100 kits being used by organizations and individuals in at least 34 states and five Canadian provinces.

Through phone consultation and conference presentations, we continue to help others around the United States and Canada start or improve their own recycling, composting, and waste reduction projects. As the concept of Zero Waste has gained momentum, Eco-Cycle has taken the lead in creating model Zero Waste programs for schools.

In 2022, we released the Zero Waste Schools Activity Guide to help educators in schools in other communities replicate our Zero Waste programming for schools.