Recycling: Elmer’s Glue Crew Challenge for Schools

mom • giving back • education • bettering communities

by Mom It Forward on November 15th, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Recycling—Going Green is a really important topic right now. Each one of us can take steps and make better choices that will help protect our planet. There are many ways to do this. We can recycle common household items such as aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and paper products. We can also educate our schools on the things they can do to help the earth.

When Elmer's asked me to take on the Glue Crew Challenge and talk about recycling glue sticks and bottles with my school, I was excited to do it!

First I went online to the www.elmersgluecrew.com and learned about recycling glue products. Second, I downloaded box templates from their website and put together 4 boxes where the students of our school could collect their used glue sticks and bottles. Then as a class we discussed why it is important to recycle. To finish the discussion we provided a hands-on experience where we created Thanksgiving napkin rings using Elmer's glue and then recycled all of the empty glue bottles into our recycling box.

All bottles that are marked with a #1 or #2 recycling symbol are recyclable, but keep in mind that your Elmer's Glue Sticks will not be marked because their special plastic can only be recycled at designated facilities.

A few of our students put collection boxes in the school's kindergarten classrooms and also in the art room. Once a week, our class will go and collect the used containers from these classes.

When the collection boxes are full, there are two ways to return your empties. You can bring the box to a Walmart® store on or after Earth Day on April 22, 2012, and give it to one of the Walmart People Greeters. Another option is once you've collected at least 250 empties, put them into a reused box (about the size of a copy paper box). Sign into your account at teracycle.net and click on "Get Mailing Labels" on the left side of the Elmer's Glue Crew Brigade page to print a pre-paid shipping label. Place the label on your box and take it to a UPS drop-off location.

Our schools use a lot of glue products. Most of them don't even know they can recycle the used containers. It is important to help educate our schools and students about recycling these products and do our part to take care of the beautiful earth we live on.