If your home is cluttered with dried-out markers, just imagine the mountain of them at your child’s school! Kids adore using markers, but their habit of leaving the caps off leads to a staggering number of unusable markers that typically end up in landfills. Fortunately, there’s a solution from Crayola that schools across the U.S. can utilize.
A viral Facebook post by a mom named Jenna Thompson has shed light on Crayola’s ColorCycle program, which offers an eco-friendly way to handle used markers. Jenna shared that her son’s preschool collected a whopping 15 pounds of dried markers that would otherwise have contributed to environmental waste. “Did you know about ColorCycle?” she exclaimed. “If you gather up those dead markers, Crayola will send you a free shipping label to return them for recycling! My kids were thrilled to help set up collection boxes at their school.”
In just three months, Jenna’s school collected an impressive amount of markers, leading her to ponder the potential impact of such a program across the entire school year. “Imagine how much waste we could divert from landfills if every school participated!” she remarked.
While Crayola covers shipping costs for marker returns, there’s a catch: shipping isn’t free for Hawaii and Alaska, which Jenna has had to finance herself, yet she believes it’s worth the effort to keep markers off the beaches. “If a group of parents chipped in a couple of bucks for shipping, it would make it feasible,” she suggested.
Getting Started with ColorCycle
To get started with ColorCycle, simply inform your child’s school or PTA about the program. It’s hard to imagine a school that wouldn’t be enthusiastic about a cost-free initiative that benefits the environment. Set up a collection station, let the markers accumulate, and then pack them into a plain cardboard box for FedEx Ground to pick up, all at Crayola’s expense—if you’re in the continental U.S.
Jenna revealed that her post garnered thousands of comments from people unaware of the program. She hopes her outreach will inspire other schools to adopt ColorCycle. Meanwhile, she’s also advocating for a similar recycling initiative for Elmer’s glue and is teaching her kids sustainable habits, like using bento boxes to minimize waste and making rainbow crayons from old, broken ones.
Conclusion
In summary, recycling dried markers through Crayola’s ColorCycle program is a simple yet impactful way to promote sustainability. Not only do we help the planet with minimal effort, but we also involve our kids in meaningful eco-friendly practices. Now, if only we could get them to remember to recap their markers!