Taking out the recycling bin doesn’t need to be a chore that your child dreads. It can be fun for the entire family to get together to plan and implement green practices. There are so many ways that you can incentivize your children to get involved in eco-friendly activities!
That being said, we know that you can’t recycle everything by yourself. Some items —
like appliances and electronics for example — require special treatment to ensure that they don’t leak or produce toxins that can have a negative impact on us and the environment.
If you have things sitting at home that you’d love to recycle, you can always utilize trash removal services from Junk Ninja to make sure that your things are responsibly disposed of.
We are proud to be a green company with environmentally friendly practices. In fact, we have a recycling facility that ensures everything we collect gets divided and sent to the right place. All you have to do is get in touch with us to see when we can come to you, present a complimentary quote, and conduct our same-day junk removal service.
We don’t only remove your junk — we donate it, re-use it and make sure it’s recycled properly.
Recycling is fun and if you don’t agree, you are probably doing it wrong.
It’s time to teach your kids the value of their trash and the importance of recycling. Try these approaches to get your children involved:
Make It a Competition
Everyone enjoys some healthy competition. If you are having a hard time getting your kids to remember to recycle, put a recycling bin outside each of their rooms and see who can not only recycle the most, but who has discarded the fewest recyclable things into their garbage!
The whole point is to make sure your kids think twice before tossing a notebook or soda can into the garbage and remember what to recycle.
Make a Chart
Sometimes it’s easy to forget all the different things that can be recycled – after all, according to The World Counts, 75% of our trash can get recycled.
To ensure your children remember exactly what is recyclable, have them get creative by making a chart that outlines what does — and does not — go into the recycling bin. After all, when you toss something that can’t be recycled into a blue bin, it actually contaminates the re-usable products.
If you need some guidelines, we created a recycling guide to help you identify specifically what you can and can’t put in your bin, and what items you can actually return to retailers so that they can dispose of your stuff.
Personalize Recycling Boxes
Your kids will love getting creative with their recycling box, whether that means drawing on it, painting it or putting their name on it. Having a personalized recycling box makes it that much more motivating for a kid to use the bin and take pride in their eco-friendly practices!
Create a Reward System
Whether you provide a gold star for every item that your kid recycles or have a tally chart for every time your child brings out the green bin, it’s entirely up to you – but a reward system will be that much more of an incentive for your kids to go green.
If competition isn’t your thing, create a common goal for all of your kids to work towards together! If they can work together to accumulate points or stickers by implementing eco-friendly practices, they can reap the reward all together! Consider a collective prize like a movie night or dinner of their choice.
Provide Relatable Context
Children do things when they have an incentive, and nothing gives incentive quite like putting things into context. For example, CoolKidFacts reported that by recycling a soda can, you are saving enough energy to watch TV for three days!
Imagine if your child thought that if they didn’t recycle a can, that’s three days of TV wasted. If that doesn’t hit home, what will?
Explain Their Options
Most kids just assume the only way to recycle is their blue bin. What they may not realize is that there are other ways to make sure their old items get re-used or re-purposed. This includes:
- Drop off centers
- Buyback centers
- Curbside collection
Show Them How Their Things Can Be Re-Used
You have two old dressers and don’t know what to do with them – have your kid revitalize one of them and donate the other!
By giving your child the opportunity to repaint their dresser to make it new, they can better understand how something they consider to be old and useless can actually get re-used if not by them, then by someone else.
Take a Trip to a Thrift Store
Instead of putting things in a recycling bin for someone else to sort through, you can also encourage your kids to see first-hand how their stuff can be reused or repurposed.
Bring them to a Habitat for Humanity or Salvation Army so that they can donate their things themselves! They can poke around and see how someone else’s trash can be their treasure – and vice versa.
Get Specific
From paper to plastic to cans, there are so many different types of things that can get recycled —
so why not get specific? Create destinations to dispose of all of these different materials.
This can even be educational as you teach younger kids about what their day to day things are made of, and what they can do with the items when they finish with them!
Making sure your kids know exactly what they are recycling will also help instill some good habits and ensure that they don’t forget that certain things are recyclable.
For example, having a specific bin for plastics will guarantee that your child understands the value of recycling plastics – unlike a considerable portion of the population. According to National Geographic, 91% of plastic isn’t being recycled.
Set a good example by teaching your children exactly what belongs in the trash, and what can be re-used.
Have Them Book a Junk Removal Appointment
Let your kids take responsibility for getting your clutter recycled! If you have middle-aged children or older you can have them take control by encouraging them to book an appointment for a full-service junk removal when they see fit.
They can identify all the trickier items (like electronics, appliances etc.) that may need to be disposed of by a professional. We’re happy to come in to take your re-usable items off of your hands and give your kids peace of mind that we will make sure their things are disposed of in a way that is eco-friendly.
If your kids want to learn more about our environmental efforts, they can always consult our website where we break down all the things we recycle and explain why it is so important to us to keep our practices green.
It’s helpful to show your kids how they can still stay environmentally friendly even when they aren’t personally sure how to recycle an item. After all, it’s easy to toss a pop can into the recycling bin and a little bit trickier to recycle a fridge.
Read on for more insight Your Grandkids Don’t Want Your Junk!.
They Can Make a Difference
Sometimes all a kid needs to know is that they are capable of making a difference. If they begin to understand how responsibly handling garbage and household items can improve their lives as well as the present and future life of their friends and families, that will give them all the confidence and knowledge they need to want to help make a difference.
Junk Ninja Will Recycle All of Your Things
Junk Ninja is a full-service junk removal company in Ottawa that not only provides junk removal services but recycling services as well. We are a green company that’s been in the business for over a decade.
You can trust that when we collect your old appliances and electronics, we will make sure it is all disposed of properly and responsibly.
We remove almost everything and promise to leave your house clear of clutter. We will make sure that all of your re-usable items get repurposed appropriately.
All you have to do is give us a call or book an appointment to have us assess your situation. We provide a complimentary quote on site that we determine based on how much room your stuff takes up in our truck.
Once you give us the green light, we will remove all of the things you want us to take off your hands and bring them to our recycling centre. There is where we sort through everything we collect and make sure your items get recycled correctly.
We are committed to keeping your home and the environment clean. Junk Ninja is happy to service all of your junk removal needs whether you’re looking to de-clutter your home or your office space.
Go beyond the surface Are Your Kids Passionate About Recycling?.
With our professional junk removal services, we are proud to serve the Ottawa area. Contact Junk Ninja for the following Junk Removal Services:-
➤ Junk Removal ➤ E-Waste Removal
➤ Appliance Removal ➤ Hot Tube Removal
➤ Furniture Removal ➤ Yard Waste Removal
➤ Renovation Cleanup ➤ Deck Removal
➤ Hoarding Cleanup ➤ E-State Cleanup
Would you like to know more about the Ottawa Recycling, Removal, and Disposal Guide and also want to contribute to the fight against climate change? Find out what can be recycled in Ottawa, where to find recycling depots, and how to reduce your waste in this helpful guide.You can also check our Complete Guide to Junk Removal In Ottawa.
