Make room for life

WCD is an initiative of Let’s Do It World, an international, non-profit organisation based in Estonia. Their mission is to empower individuals, communities, organisations and governments in driving sustainable change through action towards a ‘clean and waste-free planet’.

Friday 20 September is the date for your diaries, with the theme this year being ‘Make Room for Life’.

We all understand that time spent in the natural environment is good for our mental health and wellbeing, as well as for children’s all-round learning and development. 

Nature is constantly evolving; it changes with the seasons and is generous with all that it gives to humanity. However, nature faces daily contamination from waste materials. This year’s focus is about cleaning away some of that waste ‘making room for life’ so that all living beings can enjoy green spaces wherever they are, and flora and fauna can flourish.

• Discuss WCD with your team, and with the children (as appropriate to their age). Get their ideas and agree what you are going to focus on. Remember that this is about a clean-up that makes a difference to flora and fauna in your area.

• Take a look at the WCD website for inspiration – bit.ly/WCD-24 – and sign up to their newsletter to keep the momentum going beyond WCD.

• Download the Let’s Do it app, which can be found on the App Store or the Google Play Store, and search ‘Planet Heroes’. You’ll be able to report your cleanup efforts, upload photos and submit your waste data. You’ll then see the worldwide impact of combined efforts, as well as tracking the positive impact that your projects have had.

• Consider how to involve adults, too. Offer some ideas, such as popping a rubbish bag and some gloves in their pockets to pick up rubbish on their regular routes – cigarette butts are a particular risk to wildlife as they contain plastic and harmful toxins. Did you know that more than 50% of the 6 trillion cigarette butts produced each year end up in nature!

Please note: The last suggestion is not a family-friendly activity and we’re not encouraging children to handle cigarette butts, but perhaps if there is a smoker in the family, they can encourage them not to randomly discard their butts?

We know that many records must be kept in early years, but how much is stored on your computer or laptop that’s unnecessary? Digital pollution consumes energy and produces millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. Last year’s digital cleanup resulted in participants deleting 12.7 million GBs from their devices, preventing the annual production of at least 1,742 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

If you’re unsure of how long you should keep children’s records for, look at the Alliance mini-guide – download a copy (free to Alliance Members) from ‘My Purchases and Bookings’ on EYA Central.

An important life skill that we can teach young children is how to value and reuse something that may previously have been discarded without a second thought. To re-use something, we first need to recognise its potential. 

Educators can set a good example by thinking out loud in front of the children, for example ‘this jar/tin/box is so pretty and an interesting shape and feels nice to hold, I wonder if I could use it for something?’. A conversation can then be had with the children as you explore ideas together. This leads to further learning opportunities as you think about how the item was made, where it came from and what will happen to it after you have thrown it away.

Look out for the Alliance’s Sustainability Toolkit coming soon. The aim of the toolkit is to support early years settings to develop knowledge, skills and understanding around sustainable practice, embedding this approach into settings and beyond into the home learning environment. Keep an eye on your EYA Central to find out when the toolkit will be available and to find publications such as My favourite colour is green and Re-connecting with nature.

There are many beautiful wildflowers that contribute so much to nature but are considered to be weeds. Have an un-cleanup session in your outdoor area. Remove any plants that may be hazardous for young children but learn to love plants such as rosebay willow herb, with its tall pink flower spikes, and bright dandelions, which give us colour in early spring followed by ‘dandelion clocks’ beloved by children. They add so much to a grassy area – and who says that lawns always must be green!

Whether it’s toys or other resources in your setting, question if you really need it and if you could replace it with a sustainable alternative? Too many conventional toys that we have in our nurseries are plastic; stop and think about what real value they have for children’s learning and development, or how frequently they are played with. Remember that recycled materials are often free and found, providing a sensory play experience that plastic can never replicate.

However you decide to clean up this month, keep it real, keep it meaningful and keep the momentum!