Lincolnshire students create recycling DVD

A DVD created by Lincolnshire school pupils to encourage householders to recycle more carefully and reduce contamination in their bins is to be distributed to all county schools during September.

The DVD, by students at Ling Moor, St Michael’s C of E (Thorpe on the Hill), Washingborough Foundation primaries and North Kesteven School, is called Rethink.

The project was developed by Lincolnshire County Council’s Sustainable Schools team to help the schools teach about the benefits of recycling and how it works.

The youngsters planned, filmed and worked with the CfBT School Improvement Service’s IT team to edit the DVD, which focuses on a family and what happens to their everyday household items, giving an insight into where your plastic milk container could end up if it’s put in the recycling bin.

The pupils filmed it entering the refuse lorry, being sorted at a materials recovery unit at Caythorpe then going to Louth to be reprocessed into pellets, which can be used to make kerbstones.

On the DVD, the pupils encourage people to offer their unwanted items to charity, place them on a reuse website, advertise in a local newspaper or recycle them at a household waste recycling centre.

Kim Hudson, Sustainable Schools advisor, said: "The students saw first-hand why it’s important to recycle the correct items subject to what their district council collect. They saw video cassette tapes, huge cuddly toys and electrical items either damaging machines or taking up staff time to separate and send off to landfill."

"They also got to film where some of our landfill waste ends up and realised that recycling is a crucial part of waste reduction."

Further information:
Lincolnshire County Council