Encorp hopes to get more and more schools involved in recycling programs that engage students in collecting and recycling empty deposit-bearing beverage containers. We have various educational tools and swag to offer free of charge to facilitate their recycling efforts, including “Be a Recycling Hero!” posters, lunch boxes, pins, stickers, etc. We can supply interested schools with large plastic green bins that can be placed in each classroom. Our bins have a “re360” logo on them – meaning they are designed to hold approximately 60 containers totalling on average a $3.00 refund – which makes it easier for students to estimate and keep a tally on the money they are earning for their classroom or school by recycling. We can also equip schools with a few large canvas bulk bags that can be installed in a central area in the school and in which students can empty the containers from their classroom bins every week. The school custodian or the school’s recycling committee would ideally be responsible for transporting the filled bulk bags to a local redemption centre (RC) ever so often and setting up an account with this centre to arrange to receive payments. Some RCs may even be interested in offering a pickup service for schools that actively want to collect and recycle deposit-bearing containers.
In fact, thanks to a recent partnership with The Gaia Project – which leads waste reduction and awareness programs in New Brunswick schools – students will learn about the benefits of setting up a school beverage container recycling program and be directed to Encorp to help set this up.
Salem Elementary (Sackville, NB) is one of a few schools currently testing out and using Encorp’s bins in their classrooms to get students to collect and recycle beverage containers to raise funds for various activities. Encorp hopes to expand its school outreach efforts as of the fall of 2021.
We are also looking at getting a few more of our Re-Mobile travelling depots constructed in the fall since schools could easily use these to organize bottle drives. These railers would be kept on location at RCs in the province and lent to schools – or other not-for-profit groups – to help them organize bottle drives. For example, a school could choose to park the trailer in its parking lot for a few weeks and encourage students and their families to collect beverage containers at home and drop these off at the trailer during this time. Or the school could use the trailer for a weekend door-to-door collection organized by one of its sports teams or committees. Then, the trailer would only need to be driven back to the participating RC when full to be emptied so that the beverage containers can be counted and sorted and so that the school can be paid the funds earned from its bottle drive.
