Close up of a blue bin with a recycling symbol painted on in white.

Upcycle your teaching this Recycle Week with now>press>play

What is Recycle Week?

Taking place across Britain on 16-22nd October, Recycle Week celebrates and promotes the responsible disposal of reusable resources. Celebrating its 20th year, Recycle Week is Recycle Now’s annual flagship event – highlighting the importance of recycling and inspiring the public into doing more of the right thing, more often.

In 2023, the campaign’s theme is ‘The Big Recycling Hunt’. This year focuses on ‘missed capture’: the items that can be recycled but are commonly missed in the home.

Recycling properly reduces the need for environmentally-damaging landfill sites. In Britain, it helps us save 10-15 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year (the equivalent of over 3 million cars!).

At now>press>play, we have plenty of materials to help teach children the importance of proper waste disposal. These include our immersive Experiences and engaging follow-on resources.

Two young school students use Now Press Play. They're pretending to play the violin while listening to a lesson through their pink headphones.

How now>press>play helps teach children about recycling

In our KS2 Recycling Experience, students are transported a hundred years into the future, into a world where resources are scarce and landfill sites dominate the horizon. Through sound, story, and movement, they will:

      • Experience a world ruined by waste
        By exploring the long-term environmental effects of irresponsible waste disposal, children can learn about our responsibility to our planet and the value of sharing and reusing our precious resources — before it’s too late.
      • Learn to reduce, reuse, and recycle
        This teaches children the importance and difference between these terms. They’ll learn how to reduce how much they use, reuse old resources, and recycle responsibly.
      • Get creative with recycling
        Recycling isn’t just about throwing things away. Children will find fun ways to use old resources, such as creating “junk” musical instruments.
Two young school students use Now Press Play. They look shocked while listening to a lesson through their pink headphones; one of them is covering her mouth in shock.
Recycle Week, a pile of wasted resources in a landfill site. From Now Press Play's Recycling Experience. Caption: You step outside your front door and find yourself a hundred years in the future in a deserted and terrifying world where resources have run out.
Two young school students use Now Press Play. They look shocked while listening to a lesson through their pink headphones; one of them is covering her mouth in shock.
Recycle Week, a pile of wasted resources in a landfill site. From Now Press Play's Recycling Experience. Caption: You step outside your front door and find yourself a hundred years in the future in a deserted and terrifying world where resources have run out.

For younger learners, our KS1 Everyday Materials Experience lets them explore the different properties of plastic, glass, metal, paper, and wood, as well as how to sort these materials when recycling.

When their pet dog Scruffy is turned into plastic by the Wicked Witch of the Waste, the children will have to save the day using their investigative Science skills — as well as a little bit of magic. Along the way, they will:

      • Explore the materials around them
        This helps develop the children’s investigative skills, learning to identify different materials by their texture, temperature, appearance, and more.
      • Fight back against the Witch’s plastic powers
        As they try to undo the damage caused by the Witch, the children will learn how plastic can harm wildlife and the environment.
      • Visit a Recycling Centre
        This teaches the children how different materials are disposed of, and the importance of sorting recycling properly.
A young school child closing her eyes while using Now Press Play. She's listening through pink headphones.
A pile of used plastic yoghurt cartons being recycled, from Now Press Play's Everyday Materials Experience. Caption: Poor Scruffy. He's sitting on a plastic cushion and the Witch is feeding him with plastic food. You must save him!
A young school child closing her eyes while using Now Press Play. She's listening through pink headphones.
A pile of used plastic yoghurt cartons being recycled, from Now Press Play's Everyday Materials Experience. Caption: Poor Scruffy. He's sitting on a plastic cushion and the Witch is feeding him with plastic food. You must save him!

Teaching recycling with now>press>play’s resources

At now>press>play, we provide a number of valuable follow-on resources for further embedding learning from our Experiences. 

Both our Recycling and Everyday Materials Experiences are supplemented by Recap, Discuss, and Quiz, our unique follow-on resource which further deepens their learning. Students are given the chance to reflect on events from the Experiences, considering alternative choices they or other characters could have made and ways in which the stories might reflect their real-world attitudes to recycling.

To follow our KS2 Recycling Experience, teachers are provided with SATs-style Grammar & Punctuation questions relating to the story. This means that your class can revise for their assessments while they celebrate Recycle Week. No wasted resources here!

now>press>play enables children to experience things that are out of this world and then write about it as though it really happened to them.

Manor Leas Junior Academy

With these resources, teachers have plenty of ways to make the most of celebrating Recycle Week with their classes.

You can find out more about this year’s Recycle Week by visiting their website.

Join in with Recycle Week online by using the hashtag #recycleweek.

Try our Recycle Week resources with a free trial