What rubbish!

A couple of weekends ago family, friends and neighbours hitched an empty trailer to the car and went down to collect rubbish off our local beach.  What originally looked like a clean beach, sadly produced a load of rubbish that filled the trailer.

That night we watched a documentary called Our Plastic Ocean and it was a real eye opener for me.  I just hadn't comprehended how devastating our waste problem is to the planet and I vowed that moving forward I'd do more to help.

Developing awareness

To grow children's knowledge and understanding of the effects of human action around rubbish and the consequences of our actions, I introduced some photos to spark conversation and thought.

The first photo was of rubbish piled up along a stretch of beach...

"There's rubbish on the beach and in the sea" said Sophia.

"But why is there rubbish everywhere?"

"How did it get there?" said Noah.

"I've got no idea" said Mathilda.

"I think it went through the drain and got there" said Noah.

"It come from the water" said Henare.

"Into the drain, water flows in the drain and then rubbish ends up on the beach" said Noah.

"Look at it on the water as well" said Sophia.

The next photo was of a fish swimming under floating rubbish.

"The fishes in the water they might get dead because of the rubbish" said Aotea.

"Something is a bit sad.  It's sad, so sad" said Sophia.

"There's rubbish in the water and the fish might eat the rubbish and die" said Scott.

"The rubbish might have flowed into there, into the water" said Sophia.

"Garbage" said Asjah screwing up her face.

Then a photo showed a seal with a plastic bag stuck around it's neck.

Aww that makes my heart sad" said Mathilda, "it might choke."

"It's a bag, I think it's a shopping bag.  The seal might get dead" said Sophia.

"My Mum said if I put something around my neck I might die and choke myself and go into hospital and die forever!" said Mathilda.

The last photo showed a turtle with plastic in it's mouth.

"I'm so sad about the sad rubbish" said Sophia.  "He's eating rubbish."

"I think it might die" said Mathilda.

"They got plastic everywhere and it goes into the water and then they die" said Hunter joining the conversation.  "Anything that eats it dies" she said.

"Everyone needs to clean it up" said Kahu offering a solution to the problem.

"But where does the rubbish come from?" I asked.

"It washed up in the water" said Asjah.

"Everyone throws rubbish" said Jacob.

"If there is 100 people, they make the rubbish.  100 people eat 100 meals and they make 100 rubbish" said Caden.

"I'm feeling sad" said Noah.

"Seals can't have bags around their neck cause them can't get them off" said Jacob.  "People just put rubbish down the drain and it goes to the beach and fish eat it".

The following day we revisited the pictures and conversation resumed.  I placed paper, pens and dye out alongside the pictures and it wasn't long before children started to represent their thoughts and feelings through art.  This was obviously a subject that pulled at the heart strings as children continued to talk about the distress of the animals and marine life.

 A very serious subject!

Children are intensely engaged.

Empowered to make a difference!

Eco warriors in the making...

Some children were so moved by our discussions that they began to look for rubbish out in the playground.

"Hey look I found some rubbish!" called Noah.

Tamariki were feeling pretty good at their good deeds and effort to clean up our environment.

Revisiting the concept of where does rubbish come from...

"It comes from the whole world" said Sophia.

"No, it comes from the shops and the whole world" said Zach.

"From the bin" said Nat.

"The ground" said Asjah.

"I think its from a factory" said Sophia.

"God" said Georgia.

"God doesn't have rubbish at his world" said Sophia.

"The shop" said David.

"The supermarket" said Caden.

"From the humans...all of us" said Kanin.

We took a closer look at our rubbish for the day at kindergarten...

Wow that's a lot of rubbish!

The look on children's faces speaks volumes...it's an interesting topic and sparks up a lot of feelings!

Tamariki were surprised by the amount of rubbish we had.

"The truck takes it to the dump" said Kahu.

"And the truck tips it out" said Boston.

"People pick it up when it's all over the place.  People pick up the rubbish and save the whole world" said Sophia.

"I've got a recycle bin" said Hunter.

"Recycle only things you can recycle" said Ruby.

"You put things in the red bin" said Georgia.

We had a brief conversation about recycling and what we can recycle, what was rubbish and what we could compost.  I could see that this is a topic that we'll need to revisit so that children have opportunities to develop a deeper understanding of the recycling, composting and rubbish process.  It's an awesome journey we're on!

"The tide is coming in and it will take the rubbish out into the water" said Phoenix.

"Rubbish come from when you peel skin from an orange, you put it in the rubbish and the rubbish truck comes and they put it in the fire" said Ella.

Sophia said "There's rubbish on the beach and in the sea.  But why is there rubbish everywhere?  Something is a bit sad.  It's sad, so sad.

"I don't like to leave rubbish on the beach.  I saw a bottle in the water and picked it up.  That's good for the planet" said Noah.

"I don't like the turtle eating that plastic.  I don't like it with it in it's mouth.  People make the rubbish and they might left the door open and I think it blowed out of the door" said Brooklyn.

"The people should put the rubbish in the rubbish bin" said David.

"The rubbish is floating in the water and the fish gets dead" said Rose.

"They got plastic everywhere and it goes into the water and then the fish die" said Hunter.

The end of single use plastic bags at kindergarten

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” —Maya Angelou.

Inevitably at kindergarten we get a lot of wet clothing to send home and in the past we've bagged these up in plastic bags.  To address this problem we have purchased wet bags to use instead.  These bags will be on loan to children/parents on an as needs basis and will be bought back to kindergarten to  re-use.  

We think it's a small step in the right direction and are excited about the journey we are on!

Arohanui,
Tania