Going Green with Get2Green Club

5th Grade Get2Green Club Students Work to Change Up Recycling Program

By Ashley Ireland
March 18, 2025

Annandale Terrace Elementary is currently working on becoming a Green Flag EcoSchool on top of creating good environmental habits to make sure our students have a greener world. Part of the process this year is working on revamping our current recycling program. While we have always had a recycling program at Annandale Terrace, some habits had been slipping. Students were consistently forgetting what items are recyclable which resulted in contaminated recycling bins. These bins would have to be thrown in the trash.

To make things easier, especially for our younger students, we are focusing on putting only paper in our recycling bins with the idea that as students became used to separating out paper, we will gradually add more recyclable materials to the list. 

Our 5th Grade Get2Green club got to work and began to put in research on how to start our school towards a Zero Waste Mindset. They conducted reasearch on the benefits of recycling and how to best educate our school and community. From there, they selected how they would spread the information. Some students chose posters, some created videos, others a podcast, and one group even completed an educational website to share with our students and staff. These projects were then aired on our ATTV Morning News Show and shared on social media to help educate our families. 

Recycle Paper Public Service Announcement Group 1

Recycle Paper Public Service Announcement Group 2

The Blue Bin Podcast

Get2Green Student Created Posters

Get2Green students created graphics to remind students to put only paper in the bins.
Get2Green students created graphics to remind students to put only paper in the bins.
These posters were then placed around the school and on recycling bins.
These posters were then placed around the school and on recycling bins.
Students also used these posters to help educate students in other grade levels.
Students also used these posters to help educate students in other grade levels.
These serve as reminders to place only paper in the recycling bin as food contiminates the whole bin and it is unusable.
These serve as reminders to place only paper in the recycling bin as food contiminates the whole bin and it is unusable.
They also help remind students that items like plastic bags get caught in recycling sorting machines.
They also help remind students that items like plastic bags get caught in recycling sorting machines.

Now that the Get2Green students shared the message with the school, the next goal was to ensure that recycling was collected from classrooms and ending up in the large recycling bin as opposed to our dumpsters.

The Get2Green students collaborated with our custodians and came up with a collection plan. Classrooms would place their trash cans in the hallway each day at 2:50 pm and the Get2Green students would collect and sort it themselves to deliver to our custodians. The Get2Green students then ran into the issue of their club only having 16 students. They decided to reach out to our Enhanced Autism Classrooms (EAC) for assistance so recycling could be collected quickly. 

 

Get2Green students pose with their new recycling t-shirtsEnhanced autism classroom students pose with their new recycling team t-shirts

Our amazing students are now consistently helping with recycling each day and our school is noticing improvements. Thank you to our fabulous Get2Green students! Stay tuned for how these students continue to make our world a greener and better place.