My kid is obsessed with recycling!
Elizabeth Rogers, co-writer of The Green Book, The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet, One Simple Step at a Time
I must be doing something right. Despite living in such a disposable society I am raising a child -- a seven-year-old boy -- who is obsessed with recycling. He's got the basics down: aluminum, glass, newspaper and plastic. But he's on a mission to see how far he can push the recycling envelope.
Now that he understands that we all create 4.5 pounds of trash a day, he has actually started to weigh his trash and his recycling to see if he can make more of the good than the bad. But sometimes I worry and wonder what must go through his little mind as he wanders into my bedroom at night to ask me things like, "Can you recycle this mom?" holding up a stuffed toy Viking I got him last year in Iceland. "No honey, go back to bed."
It doesn't stop there with the little mind. We did a "day of waste" in his classroom, and I explained to the kids that over the course of our lifetime each of us will create 600 times our adult weight in garbage. It was hard for us to imagine that, so we made a garbage monster and it went something like this: Broken down, your torso would be paper, one leg would be yard trimmings, the other food scraps, one arm would be plastic with a rubber hand, the other would be metal with a wood hand, your head would be glass and your neck would be all the other stuff.
"In the end," I told my son's first grade class, "We all leave behind a 90,000-pound legacy of trash for our grandchildren."
They were a little scared of me at that point.
Still my son persevered on his quest to push the trash to the limit...
Our modest under-the-sink compost crockery was another target for him. "Mom?" he asks. "Can I put the dead gold fish in the compost?" Huh. I don't know, I actually think he can, can't he? I think he may have pushed it just a bit further today than he thought he was going to get away with. Triumph for the little guy!
The other day he came home from a play date in such a swivet I thought, oh boy here we go, first fight, whose mom do I have to call to make apologies to? Once I calmed him down and got the sentences to flow evenly again, I realized that the rage was being caused by the fact that the home he had come from did not recycle. How could this be? he asked me. Didn't they know that it was good for the planet? Didn't they know about the environment? Could I please call the mom and tell her all about it?
Now what?
That's when it dawned on me: the power that my curious seven year-old has. And I had to let him know it was his job to explain, not to the mom, but to his friend, the importance of the environment. The importance of the planet and the power of the little things that add up to the big things, like recycling. He had a big job to do, but I had taught him well and I knew he could handle it. The power of kids teaching their parents.
It's just like in nature, it all comes full circle.
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Great to hear that your son -- like so many other kids! -- is excited about saving the planet! I think he, and many others, will enjoy the new fun, funky and engaging website from the folks at WGBH called The GREENS, at www.meetthegreens.org -- it explores an array of kid-friendly green topics and offers concrete ways kids can take action, all in an upbeat and humorous way with which kids can identify. Animation from The GREENS is even going to be included within the Live Earth concerts to be broadcast worldwide on July 7th -- hope you can check it out!
I am glad to hear of someone elses child being as motivated as mine is. Maybe we could all learn a little more from our children's probing questions.
My 5 year old is very much into reusing, although she calls it recycling. She loves thinking up ways to use things that we were ready to recycle. She's hauled boxes away from the recycle bin to use as cars and thought up crafts to do with old containers. I just love the creativity.
And both my kids are pretty good at knowing what can be recycled versus going into the trash. My 2 year old will just say "tra?" (trash) when he's in doubt, then put it wherever I tell him. "Recycle" is still too big a word for him.
I just love how naturally these things come to children if it's just a part of their home environment.
that is such the cutest story!
i love the ending.
really inspiring in a hopeful-still sort of way.
right on
I am worried about your use of the term "obsessed" when referring to the enthusiasm that your child demonstrates when it comes to recycling. I have a sister who has been diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and she is obsessed with recycling. My sister values her banana peels more than caring for her cat. She has banana peels piled up around the sink that she's "preparing" to take out to her compost pile. She has them piling up around the sink since she "hasn't gotten around to" taking outside to the mulch pile. When I threw the rotten, stinking peels into the household trash container in the kitchen, she freaked out. She called me an idiot and she fished the peels out of the trash and counted them as though they were hundred dollar bills. Please be careful when you use the term "obsessed". Obessive Personality Disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and should not be used as a casual description for someone who is merely eager and enthusiastic.