How candy wrappers got N.L. students talking about recycling plastic

Waves of Changeis aCBCseries exploring the single-use plastic we're discarding, and why we need to clean up our act. You can be part of the community discussion by joiningour Facebook group.

Students at Corner Brook Intermediate say spending a month collecting their snack wrappers for a CBCrecycling campaign has left a lasting impression about the lifecycle of their waste.

"We don't think about how our plastics could possibly be recycled, so we just throw them out,"Grade 9 student Katelyn Howell said about her pre-Halloween mindset."Now that Iknow where it ends up, itdefinitely[bothers me]."

Howell and her classmates saved their candy wrappers eventually amounting to six garbage bags, stuffed full aspart of a recycling campaignorganized by CBCstations in Gander, Corner Brook and Happy Valley-Goose Bay for the month following Halloween.

• There's a way to recycle all your Halloween snack wrappers

Anyone was welcome to drop off snack wrappers at the stations, which after Nov. 30 will be sent to Terracycle, acompany repurposinghard-to-recycle plastics.

'Why do we do this?'

The CBI students begin learning about ocean pollution in Grade 8, and plastics in Grade 9, but thewrappers piling up in their classrooms gavestudents a startling visual to hammer home the problem of plastic waste.

"It was a conversation piece with them, and they engaged in that, a whole lot," said science teacher Christine Adey.

"When Iwas little Ialways loved the idea of becoming a marine biologist," said Grade 9 student Madison Rubia.

"When we started learning about the pollution in oceans and what it's doing to the marine ecosystem,eventually I just [said] why do we do this?"

It started a conversation which really needs to happen.- Christine Adey

Those big questionshave also sparkedconversations about what the school can do beyond one recycling campaign to battle single use plastics.

"The students now are questioning a lot of our recycling, or lack of," said Adey.

"Our students actually want to bring some recycling programs into our school. So Ithink it started a conversation which really needs to happen."

Little kids, big ideas

Several schools in Labrador also dove into the recycling challenge. The 26 students at St. Lewis Academy gathered hundreds of wrappers, according to teacher April Poole.

"It gets them into that mindset, thatthey can do something to makea difference," she told CBC Radio's Labrador Morning.

"Because we're on the coast here, we don't have a whole lot of access to recycling opportunities. Ireally believe people here would recycle more, if we had more of an opportunity to do so."

Even the youngest students at Peacock Primary Schoolin Happy Valley-Goose Bay have chipped in to the campaign, collecting hundreds of wrappers.

"It's helping the environment, and the community," said Grade 1 student Joshua Crocker.

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