We recycle in my household. Every week or so, my child Nicholas and I take our recyclables down to the recycling place and we put all of the different materials in the correct bins. Of course, we only take our recyclables when we have at least one other errand to run. That way, we don't waste the going green effort by making a special trip just to recycle.Here is where our trip to the recycling center is probably different than most peoples. Nicholas is a 12 year old boy who has Down syndrome and autism. He is a very unusual young man and does have some serious development disabilities, but he loves to work and he especially wants to be as independent as possible.
That is Nicholas is the picture dropping a plastic bottle into the plastics bin. You can see that there are pictures of acceptable items on the bin. Nicholas loves to place all of the recyclables into the bins. I usually just sit back and watch because he does not want me to do any of it.
We use our trip to the recycling center as a learning experience. Sometimes Nicholas will pull something out of our recycling container and it does not exactly match the pictures on the recycling bins. He has learned to put the item up to the pictures on the bins and decide if it goes there. He seldom makes a mistake and I am usually able to get him to look again if he appears to be ready to throw the wrong recyclable into the wrong bin.
This may seem like no big deal to most people but to a child like Nicholas this exercise in recycling is huge. It gives him a sense of accomplishment, semi-independence, and it helps him learn to sort.
Recycling can be such a mundane experience but for Nicholas and me it has become something we both look forward to. Do you have any stories similar to this one. I would love to hear about them. Just leave me a comment or e-mail me at bruce@bruzzbuzz.com.
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