With the end of the summer holidays comes back to school. It’s time to get back to routines like recycling and make new resolutions. Many households are opting to adopt more sustainable habits so that the start of the school year has the least possible environmental impact. Using second-hand books when buying textbooks is one of the most popular tricks to save money at home and “save” resources for the planet.
«When we talk about going back to school, the focus is on the school supplies. It seems that “every year they ask us for more” and this includes our children: they want a new backpack, new pens… The key is to instil in them the value of reuse. “Stock up on all the school supplies that are in good condition and use them again,” advises Helena Astorga, head of Naturaliza, the Ecoembes project to promote environmental education in the educational system. If last year’s pencil case is still in good condition, she encourages “personalizing it with patches” or dyeing the backpack with natural dyes, giving it “a new look.”
If we have no choice but to buy new materials, we should opt for recycled and quality products. Many brands manufacture sustainable school supplies. Lefrik and Fieito are two Spanish examples of backpacks created from recycled plastic. «The fabric is made from 100% recycled materials and is durable. We offer a 5-year guarantee,» explains Curra Rotondo, CEO of Lefrik. They also participate in environmental education projects. «We explain the life cycle of waste to children at risk of exclusion. They really like seeing that the extra work they do at home to recycle at home is turned into a backpack they can take to school. They can see the results at their fingertips.»
As to Notebooks, don’t throw them away if they still have pages left. «We encourage parents not to have to be new. If they have any leftovers, bring them to school!» advises María Valderrey. She teaches music and is the tutor for 1st and 2nd grade Primary students at CEIP San Roque. Her school is one of the 1,750 schools in Spain that are part of the Naturaliza network to promote environmental respect across subjects such as Mathematics and Language. In total, more than 2,700 teachers have already been trained through its platform, and some 125,000 children will learn about important issues such as drought, deforestation and pollution.
Located in the small municipality of Pradoluengo (Burgos), its classrooms have a total of 50 children from Kindergarten to 6th grade of Primary. It is a small community where They are already seeing the results of educating with an environmental focuseven outside of school. “Last year we worked on recycling in the classroom through the Naturaliza content. Each year we focused on a different recycling container: the yellow one for packaging, the blue one for paper and cardboard, the grey one, the brown one… But we wanted our work to reach the whole town, so we spoke to the Town Hall.”
The result? “We managed to get the information posters that the students had made onto the market. They were also digitised into QR codes that we stuck onto the bins. Anyone in the village with a mobile phone could check what could and could not be thrown away,” says Valderrey. This is a wonderful example of the real impact of early environmental education. “If you educate from school, you reach the whole society. And, if you reach the whole society, you can change the world”says the teacher.
In addition, Naturaliza seeks to promote outdoor classrooms to raise environmental awareness. In Pradoluengo, many classes are held in the school yard, where they have a small farm of Castilian chickens. «This breed is in danger of extinction. Through them, students are trained in the care of biodiversity in a transversal way. In Natural Sciences we learn about the oviparous reproduction process. In Language, we dedicate poems to them, in Music, songs; we solve mathematical problems with eggs and, to build the chicken coop, we worked on the volumes», lists Valderrey. Families are also involved: «We sell them the eggs (encouraging the purchase of local products) and we use the money to feed the birds».
It is also important to set an example in how we move.We often see rows and rows of cars at the school gates.but if the journey is short, it can be done on foot or by public transport,” says the head of Naturaliza. We can even share a car.
Another tip for a more sustainable return to school has to do with lunch. “Opting for cloth bags or lunch boxes to store sandwiches and using reusable bottles helps reduce waste,” Astorga points out. In the case that it is essential, we must remember that plastic wrappers, aluminium foil or juice cartons always go in the yellow box.
«Our adults of tomorrow are the children of today. “It is important that they acquire values; that they have basic knowledge to better understand their environment and impact it in the most positive way possible,” concludes Astorga.