Thousands of students to participate in largest recycling challenge

Australia’s largest schools recycling program, MobileMuster’s 2012 Schools Recycling Challenge, has kicked off again for the fifth year running. This free schools program, offered by the telecommunications industry, is designed to educate and engage students in learning about product stewardship and the importance of keeping old mobiles and their accessories out of landfill.

So far 80 schools have registered to participate in the newly designed, 10-module, school curriculum-based program and this year MobileMuster hopes to break the record in the number of schools registering in this rewarding initiative.

“This year we have revamped the challenge and it provides teachers with new and innovative ways to engage students in environmental topics like product stewardship and recycling,” said Rose Read, Recycling Manager of MobileMuster.

“With World Environment Day around the corner on 5 June, this is a great opportunity to engage students in activities that will conserve our natural resources and protect our environment in a fun and interactive way.”

This year’s challenge has 10 new learning modules plus two new online interactive classroom activities to help students learn about mobile phones, recycling and how they can be part of the solution to this environmental challenge. Learning modules include: how mobile phones are made; resources inside phones and resource recovery; end products made from mobiles; product stewardship; running a mobile phone muster; and an online resource recovery calculator.

Since its inception, more than 1500 schools and over one million students have been involved in MobileMuster’s Schools Recycling Challenge.

“Looking back at the history of the Challenge, over 6000 handsets and 8000 batteries have been recycled,” said Read.

“The environmental benefit of this is significant. More than 45 kg of heavy metals such as lead and cadmium have been diverted from landfill, more than 9350 kg of plastics and metals have been recovered for re-use - enough aluminium to make over 9170 cans and plastics to make nearly 930 fence posts.”

For more information on how your school can participate in the 2012 MobileMuster Schools Recycling Challenge, call 1300 730 070 or visit http://www.mobilemuster.com.au/school_challenge. Round 1 registrations close at the end of June.