Supporting Carton and Recycling Education in Canadian Schools

In 2022, the Carton Council of Canada continued to support creative educational efforts in Canadian schools. Focused on exceptional content and learning-focused experiences, each program helps increase students’ understanding of the importance of waste reduction – and carton recovery — strategies.

The Gaia Project’s Trash Tracker program: Trash Tracker is a program designed to inspire elementary and middle school students to create a waste diversion plan for their school. Through sorting one day’s worth of waste, students are able to identify issues and find solutions related to improving their school’s waste diversion performance. The program has a special focus on effectively capturing milk cartons and drink boxes.

This year, as one of the programs sponsors, CCC supported five Trash Tracker programs delivered in schools in New Brunswick in both Francophone and Anglophone communities.

According to the data analysis collected from 40 participating classrooms across the province, the largest divertible category to make up the waste stream was organic waste (30%), followed by paper and cardboard (each at 15%). Cartons, for their part, made up 12% of the waste stream. We look forward to our continued collaboration with The Gaia Project over the 2022-23 school year so that these numbers can be reduced to a minimum.

Students in New Brunswick participate in The Gaia Project’s Trash Tracker program, with support from Carton Council of Canada

Dairy Farmers of Canada, Manitoba Regional Nutrition Team, Recycle Right with Milk Program: In 2022, CCC also became a sponsor of the Manitoba-based initiative Recycle Right with Milk.

The purpose is to offer elementary schools in the province a program that supports the healthy habit of drinking milk at lunch while increasing environmental awareness, helping students optimize the recycling of beverage containers.

CCC’s sponsorship supported the distribution of 35 Spectrum Slim triple stream units along with 175 plastic lids and pails to be used to collect residual liquids in Manitoba elementary schools.

The Spectrum Slim triple stream unit helps students properly sort their waste and recycle their beverage containers, including milk cartons, in schools.

EcoSchools Canada: Over the course of a two-year partnership, Carton Council of Canada and EcoSchools Canada have collaborated to create new, bilingual tools and resources encouraging students across Canada to take an active role in setting up effective recycling systems, as well as properly managing milk cartons and drink boxes at school. CCC and EcoSchools also developed a well-received 2-minute video in French and English entitled Best Practices for Carton Recycling at School.

Over the course of the 2021-22 school year, 136 schools completed the Conduct a Waste Audit action. Based on the self-reported performance of these schools, cartons made up a significant portion (34%) of the recycling stream and constituted 16% of the garbage stream. Similar to the approach in New Brunswick, CCC is in discussions with EcoSchools to determine how best it can extend its support in the coming years towards the goal of eliminating cartons from schools’ garbage stream.

Results of waste audits conducted by 136 participating Eco Schools in 2021-2022