Recycling for Refugees

We spilled the cans and bottles onto the grassed oval, and others came. Vinnie and I at first, then Bea joined in, and Jude and Alex, and more, and in no time the students created a system. 

Aluminium cans. Plastic bottles. Glass. Tetra boxes.

The girls did the cans, and chose to gather them into lots of 10, each giving themselves a job to do, and they tossed and caught them, and talked, cooperated, had a new experience, and soon after the bell to end lunch play, they counted thirty-one piles, all complete with ten.

Three-hundred and ten cans.

“Thirty-one dollars,” said Jude. 

Then we found another twenty-two in a tub, added them to the total.

Vinnie had arranged the glass bottles into collections of ten, and he counted five neat. 

Fifty bottles. He worked it out. “Five dollars”.

But the bell had gone, and it was time to return to class, and it was a rush – the leaving - but the sorting was done, and a tally started. 332 aluminium cans. 50 eligible glass bottles. 82 plastic bottles. 78 Tetra boxes. 

Thank you to all at St Kilda Park Primary School who are supporting this initiative. I will post the tally, shortly, on one of the collection boxes. I have pledged to raise $5000 to help welcome and support a refugee family from Afghanistan, due to arrive in Melbourne in early August. I have challenged the children at SKiPPS to help me raise $500 worth of eligible 10c deposit scheme containers, and I reckon they’ll do it.

If your child would like to join-in the counting, let them know I’ll visit the school for the next fortnight on Wednesdays, and we’ll sort and count on the oval during the lunch break. Unless it’s windy. Empty cans and plastic go everywhere in the wind!

And thank you to the two SKiPPS parents who have so generously donated to what our group of friends are doing, and for the kindness of their messages. They can be read, here: Shout For Good

By next week, we’ll have a tally book.

Already, we are up and running and children are finding pleasure in the sorting and counting, in the tallying and helping, and all along the way they are asking questions.

Dugald