It is unusually quiet in White Plains Ridgeway Elementary School in-door recess because rows of students are sitting in front of large posters trying to figure out the clues.

The “Did you know” lunchroom scavenger hunt program, by We Future Cycle, is challenging students to look beyond recycling. Students learn shocking statistics about the every day things they use. They learn that the US alone uses 500 million straws per day, for an average use time of less than 60 seconds. And they learn that it is easy to make a difference. Just ask yourself ” Do I really need that straw”.

Filling out blanks, unscrambling the clues brought students to ponder facts like that the world uses AND DISCARDS over a trillion plastic bags a year. Each of these plastic bags still being in existence, most ending up floating in our water ways now.

Students learned about the staggering mountains of single use plastic bottles in the US and the depressing recycling rate of only 23%.

We Future Cycle’s goal is to nurture the other two Rs , REDUCE and  REUSE in participating schools. Society cannot recycle itself to zero waste and only through education we can change our throw-away society.

Because there is no away in the world