My Plastic Parcel – Activity to teach children to ‘reduce’, ‘reuse’,’ recycle’ and ‘refuse’ plastic

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1. To teach students how harmful plastic is for our environment.
2. To teach them to ‘reduce’, ‘reuse’,’ recycle’ and ‘refuse’ waste.
3. To teach them the alternatives available to replace plastic.

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Plastic waste like waste disposable cups, bottles, waste plastic bags etc. (dry waste).

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1. Ask the students to collect dry plastic waste from their houses, neighbourhood and school. This would include used plastic bottles, disposable cups, used polythene bags, plastic straws, etc.

2. Ask them to make a list of all the different types of waste and the number of each item.

   Fill the table below:

   S.No.	Plastic Waste	Quantity
   1)	Bottles	15
   2)	Straws	30

3. Students will realise the amount of plastic waste we generate every day.
4. Now ask the students to make useful things or articles of decoration out of the waste plastic. For eg:- Plastic bottles can be used to make flower pots. In this case the student can use wet waste like fruit and vegetable peels as compost for the plant.
5. Once done the students should gift these articles to their family members and neighbours from whom they had collected the waste.
6. Ensure that the material used for packaging these is biodegradable like waste newspaper.
7. The students should become ‘ Say no to plastic ambassadors’ and tell the family members and neighbours to whom they gift these about the negative effects of plastic on the environment.
8. Ask the students also to suggest alternatives to plastic. For eg;- people should carry their own cloth or jute bags to the market, instead of asking for polythene bags.

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1. Ask students to reflect on how much plastic do we use everyday? Students observe the large amount of plastic waste generated in our environment. This observation will have a greater impact on them rather than facts from their textbooks, since they see the waste plastic generated in their environment themselves.
2. Ask them to think of innovative solutions to ‘reduce’, ‘reuse’, ‘recycle’ and ‘refuse’ plastic.

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1. Be careful to guide students to avoid wet plastic since that might lead to infections.

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1. The activity can alternatively also be done with E-waste. For eg:- students can make pen stands with waste CDs.
2. The activity can also be done with waste paper. Students can recycle paper and make notebooks from recycled paper, (in case the school has a recycling machine). They can also make paper bags for shopping out of waste newspapers.
3. Likewise many different kinds of waste materials can be used like fruit and vegetable peels, pencil shavings, waste matchboxes, etc.

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Facts about Plastic Waste

• In the last 70 years, 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced in India.
• Of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic produced, 6.3 billion tonnes have been discarded.
• Every year, nearly 13 million tonnes of plastic waste are added to oceans. Given their durability plastics do not decompose.
• “ A plastic bottle takes between 450-1000 years to decompose.”
• Nearly 50% of plastics used are single use products such as bottles, plastic bags, packaging, straws, stirrers, spoons and forks. Around the world, 1 million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute. Every year we use up to 5 trillion disposable plastic bags.
• Plastic waste leads to destruction of ecosystems, threat to lives of cattle and also enter our food systems.

( Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com)

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