It’s finally Earth Week! The week that we have all been waiting for! It is every environmentalist’s favorite week of the year and arguably one of the most important weeks of the year (though I am a firm believer that every week should be Earth week). Check out the awesome official Earth Day website here: https://www.earthday.org/. This week we went to one of the local elementary schools to teach the fourth grade classes about recycling in the Greencastle systems for Earth week. Our class of environmental fellows as a whole was super excited to share their hard work from the semester with the kids and to play with them and have a couple days of fun. We planned some activities to do with them, such as a recycling relay and a coloring activity where they could color canvas bags to take home with them for trips to the store or whatever they want to use them for. It was actually a great learning experience for me too because not being from Putnam County, I didn’t know what was recyclable and what wasn’t at first coming here. Back home in Fort Wayne, we also use Republic Recycling just like here in Greencastle, but up in the bigger city we are able to recycle more products such as glass and plastic bags. Here is the Republic Recycling website so that you can look up what can and cannot be recycled where you live: https://www.republicservices.com/. The kids surprised me even, knowing way more about recycling in their own town as a fourth grader than I would have ever imagined. When we asked the classes where you are able to recycle plastic bags in Greencastle, a young boy yelled out “at the store,” which was indeed true. I didn’t even know that you could recycle your plastic bags at the local Kroger in Greencastle. When I was in fourth grade, I don’t even know if I knew the difference between garbage and recyclables at that point yet. Even when we sat down and discussed with the kids some options to living a more plastic free life, they came up with some good options that I had never heard of before, for example, using tied up t-shirts as alternative to grocery bags. Check it out! I found an upcycle tutorial video: https://youtu.be/2w7gbu8JRSw. It’s crazy to me to see how the times have changed across the generations, but in this case it is certainly a good thing. Seeing the kids react in such a positive way is refreshing in comparison to the older generations who seem to have mostly given up on hope for the future of this planet. The kids at that elementary school are full of hope, and it is a good thing that our generation is teaching them how to benefit the future because they are the ones who are going to have to help change it. Working with the kids, seeing them so enthusiastic and interested gave me hope for the future and our generation because it shows that we are already making a positive impact on the ones who need it most. That does not mean that we can stop here by any means, but it is a good milestone to acknowledge. Let’s keep up the good work folks!
by Alyssa Luarde
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