Years ago my friend told me about crayon recycling. I did not get serious about this idea until I compiled a zillion broken crayons of my own. (Boys. Need I say more?) Since I coordinate recycling for cash at my school, I am always looking for green fundraising ideas or just plain good sense take back programs.
Crayon recycling seemed like a no brainer. Everyone had broken crayons. Just think, in an elementary school, how many broken crayons there are sitting around people’s houses. The recycling effort started off slow, but soon everyone was bringing in their crayons. Some brought them in Chinese food containers! Talk about a reuse idea. (No, they did not steal them from the Chinese restaurant…)
When I started to sort them out, I realized that recycling broken crayons to some meant giving me crayons you don’t want anymore. There were perfectly good crayons in the mix that looked like they fell out of the crayon box. There were also ones that were just missing their tips. All they needed was a good sharpening.
How many of the crayons were really broken? Maybe a 1/4 of the crayons. (Above is the bag of perfectly good crayons.) As I sorted through the crayons I became more and more confused. The following questions plagued me as:
Did people just want to get rid of their crayons and this was an easy method of disposal?
Did people truly think that the crayons they were disposing of were broken once they lost their tips? Or did their kids just not like the purple crayon? Harold did. Remember, Harold and the Purple Crayon? (Come on. You know that book. See a short You Tube video to refresh your memory.)
Was my crayon recycling just a small spoke in the wheel of our disposable society? People seemed to get new ones when there is nothing wrong with the old ones? Or am I reaching here and trying to be too philosophical? You can tell me. I know; Its just crayons…but…(Gently, people.)
Were these crayons bound for the trash can if I did not stage a crayon intervention? (Yes, this question made me chuckle. Thinking of myself as the crayon whisperer.)
Could people not have any idea what to do with their unwanted stuff?
I guess I just did not get it because this is not my mind set. I would have given these crayons to restaurants, churches, day care center, neighbors, etc. rather than send them to be made into new fun looking crayons or fire logs. However, the broken ones I was going to give them a new life and recycle them. I did not figure anyone would want the broken ones.
But, I have to realize not everyone thinks like me or has the time to figure out what they should do with the stuff they don’t want.
So what did I do with the crayons? I gave all the crayons, whether they were gently used, almost new or broken, to someone at a church. I was reluctant to give her the broken ones, but she wanted them all. She exclaimed that the kids would love them. (That made me feel good.)
I realized that I too needed to rethink the value of “broken” crayons. They were still usable but just needed to be sharpened. Does this mean I should throw away small pencils too?
So what are your thoughts about my crayon recycling adventure? Symptomatic of a bigger problem or its just crayons?
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I had a similar feeling last year when I volunteered to help my son’s teacher ready the classroom for the upcoming school year. We live in California and my son attends a public school. If you’ve not heard, California is last, or very nearly, in funding per pupil. We have NO money for our schools and, rather than man the green team as I had wanted, I spent my son’s kindergarten year working my a** off trying to raise funds to keep the school librarian. (We did it!). But back to that first day, my son’s teacher had me throw out all the old glue sticks, crayons, pencils, and so on to be replaced with spanking new ones from Office Depot. It just killed me! Really? Throw them out? There was still glue in them. Many of the crayons were barely used. Is this what we’re frittering our few school dollars on? Bright and shiny new supplies when the old ones work perfectly well?
crayons are gold dust round here (2 budding artists and 1 grown up one) and the teeny tiny stubs get recycled into candles by the school.
viv in nz
ps The pencil in my purse is about an inch long
Green Bean, it amazes me the amount of waste at school. You highlighted a perfect example. I brought all of old games to the teachers after the principal told me that they had bought all new “stuff” for the school year. The teachers gobbled them up to use them in the classroom.
I am going to encourage a material exchange at the school for the teachers and the parents. So many of us have boxes of unused supplies that the schools could use. Anna
I can’t believe I came across this today. I live in SF, CA and am considering starting up a program that collects used crayons in order to recycle the teeny ones and package up the good ones to donate / ship to kids in war torn countries.
My sis is a 1st grade teacher and I’m blown away by the fact that they struggle so hard to get the things they need. And I read here a teacher threw away stuff?!?
Any ideas or encouragement anyone has would be awesome!
Melissa, check out my link in the article( “recycling crayons”). It hyperlinks to my previous article on who is recycling crayons to make them into new crayons and fire logs. Perhaps you can work out something with them to give them your broken crayon and salvage the good ones. Let me know if you go through with your idea so I can add you to that article. Anna