Manitoba kids turn recycling into art for Take Pride Winnipeg contest

Kids bored at home during the pandemic got a chance to put their art skills to the test and see how creative they could get with things like pop cans, shampoo bottles and toilet paper rolls.

Take Pride Winnipeg, which focuses on encouraging citizen engagement and keeping the city clean, ran a contest asking elementary school students in Manitoba to make an animal out of items at home they would usually recycle.

Executive director Tom Ethans said the charity got more than 360 entries from kids across the province and picked multiple winners from different grades.

CBC'sWeekend Morning Show host Bruce Ladan talked to two of the winners to see how they came up with the idea for their winning entry and why recycling is important to them.

Kiera Schutz, a Grade 6 student at Grosse Isle School, said she looked online for ideas and decided to make a fish for her entry. She spent a few hours on the project, and attached tabs from pop cans to a body wash bottle for the body, then used bottle caps for eyes and lips and cut up pieces of an aluminum can for the fins and tail.

Kiera said she often sees people dump garbage along the side of the road where she lives, and wants to do her part to recycle and reuse as much as she can.

"When people recycle, things can go back into use," she said. "It prevents things like garbage in the ocean . and people dumping on the sides of the roads."

Swasti Kumar, a Grade 3 student at Sansome School, said she went online with her mom for inspiration before she started her crocodile creation.

"Because of its enormous size, the idea of making a crocodile just struck my mind," Swasti said.

She said she used boxes, tinfoil, toilet paper rolls and egg cartons to finish the project, which took her three or four days to complete. Swasti said the tail was the hardest part to finish.

She said making the piece was fun because it combined her passion for art with her interest in being environmentally conscious.

"It's important to save the Earth," she said.

The winners got prizes including passes to the Assiniboine Park Zoo and frisbees made out of recycled materials.