Homeschool Recycling

My daughters 6 and 8 and I started a monthly recycling program. In our community, our recycling company doesn't offer us many options in paper recycling as we were clumped together with the business recycling. They will not pick up cardboard, chipboard, magazines, catalogs etc., which fills our mail slots daily. So Gabrielle and Meredith and I started collecting on the first Friday of every month. We take our jeep and our trailer around the neighborhood and collect whatever anyone puts out for us. We began in October 2007 and, since that date they have collected over 7800 pounds of paper that would have gone into the landfill. We have saved 14,430 pounds of lumber, 93,600 gallons of water, 12.34 cubic yards of landfill space, 66 trees from being cut down, 7.8 barrel of oil, 15,990 kilowatts of energy and 235 pounds of air pollution from going in to our air. It has been a wonderful learning experience for us and all of our neighbors. We plan on continuing this program until we move, which will not be for a long time. We have received an Achievement Level plaque for a River Star School from the Elizabeth River Project here in our hometown, pretty impressive for two girls, a mom and a trailer.