Encorp’s Recycling Heroes in Schools program continues to gain momentum, having recently wrapped up the first semester of the 2025–2026 school year. Now in its third year, the program continues to grow, with 103 schools across New Brunswick actively participating to help protect the environment by recycling deposit-bearing beverage containers.
From September to December 2025, participating schools collectively returned over 607,000 beverage containers for recycling! We’re excited to see the positive impact our Recycling Heroes are making across their communities.
Here’s a quick look at the schools currently leading the way this year:
While these schools are at the top right now, there’s still plenty of time for others to climb the rankings before May. At that time, the five top-performing schools in the program will each earn a $1,000 reward for their recycling achievements.
Rankings are based on the ratio of containers recycled per student, meaning every container returned counts toward each school’s success.
How Schools Can Boost Their Container Collection Efforts
Schools that have topped the leaderboard in previous years all share one key strategy: they involve their communities. To help with this, Encorp offers a fundraising toolkit on its website, complete with checklists, guides, and promotional templates to help schools organize and promote their efforts.
A Classroom Connection: “Refundamentals”
We also want to highlight Refundamentals, a learning package launched last year through a partnership between Encorp and The Gaia Project. This free educational resource connects classroom subjects like math and science to the importance of recycling deposit-bearing beverage containers.
Designed for grades 3–5, it’s a great way to bring recycling education into the classroom while supporting your school’s recycling efforts.
Keep up the great work, Recycling Heroes — we can’t wait to announce final tallies and be able to reward our top performers at the end of the school year!
