Recycling Teaching Resources

Bring the importance of recycling into your sustainability lesson plans with sorting activities for kids, recycling and rubbish bin labels for the classroom and more teacher-created resources to encourage kids to recycle at school and home.

This collection of recycling resources for teachers was created by the teachers of Teach Starter to help you teach your students to lead a more sustainable and environmentally friendly lifestyle. Explore organic and non-organic waste, introduce the three Rs, and build your students' understanding of the ecological consequences of waste production, disposal and recycling with printable and digital activities made with you, your classroom and your students in mind!

Looking for tips to instill the importance of recycling in the classroom? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including a handy recycling definition you can use with your students, plus some recycling facts for kids that can help get your students hooked on sustainability.

What Is Recycling? A Kid-Friendly Definition

How do you explain what recycling means to your students? Here's a kid-friendly definition you can use!

Recycling is the process of collecting, sorting and processing rubbish so they can be turned into new products. Instead of throwing things away when we're done with them, we give them a new life by transforming them into something useful again.

When we recycle, we separate materials like paper, plastic, glass or metal into special bins.

These materials are collected and sent to facilities where they are transformed into new items. This is how recycling helps us reduce waste and protect our environment.

What Is the Recycling Symbol? How Kids Can Spot This Important Logo

Sometimes called the recycling logo, the recycling symbol is one your students have probably seen over the years — but do they know what it means?

This internationally recognised symbol is made up of three arrows arranged in a triangular shape. The arrows point toward one another to create a continuous loop.

Teach your students to look for this logo on all of the different materials they encounter. It can help them determine if an item can be added to the recycling bin!

What Are the Three R's? A Kid-Friendly Explanation

We mentioned the three R's above, and you've likely heard them plenty of times over the years. But what about your students?

Here's a simple way to help you build on these important principles of recycling with your class!

The three Rs are a helpful way to remember what we can do to make a positive impact.

1. Reduce — Reduce means trying to minimise the amount of waste we create in the first place. We can do this by using less packaging or choosing products with less packaging.
2. Reuse — When we reuse something, we find new ways to use them instead of throwing them in the bin. For example, your family may take old towels or sheets to the animal shelter to be used as bedding for the dogs who are waiting for homes. This gives them a new life!
3. Recycle — Recycling is the final step in the three R's! When we separate the materials that can be reused from our rubbish, it can be sent off to a special facility to be made into a brand-new item that we might find on the store shelves!

6 Recycling Facts for Kids to Get Students' Attention

Do you need a few handy facts about recycling attention to really get your students engaged? Here are some favourites from our teacher team that are almost guaranteed to make them sit up straight and pay attention!

1. The recycling symbol used all around the world today was actually created by a uni student in America in 1970. University of Southern California student Gary Anderson entered a competition with his logo, and it ended up becoming a worldwide icon!
2. Australia produces 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste each year, and 130 000 tonnes end up in the ocean around Australia every year.
3. Compared to the rest of the world, Australia has the highest consumption of single-use plastic waste per capita. We use 60 kilogrammes each per year!
4. According to Planet Ark, in just one year, Australia generated 75.8 mega tonnes (Mt) of total waste. That's equivalent to the weight of 471 Sydney Opera Houses.
5.  South Australia is the best performing state or territory in the nation when it comes to recycling. South Australians manage to save 80 percent of their rubbish from ending up in landfills!
6. Australia has a National Waste Target that we're all responsible for trying to meet! The national goal is to reduce the total waste generated in Australia by 10 percent per person by 2030.