By WWG Earth YES! students
The WWG Earth YES! class has decided to take recycling to the next level! The following three projects are all example of how we are reducing, reusing, and recycling, resulting in products that you can buy to help our YES! team:
- Handmade bags: We are taking old colored t-shirts and turning them into handmade bags. The bags are great for carrying things to and from school. The bags we are doing are very simple for us to make and we have learned that by using photo paper, we can print pictures and iron them onto the bags. We are selling the bags, along with the solar lights and Earth Braids, and hope to make at least $10 per bag to put toward further Earth YES! projects.
- Solar lights: We are taking old glass or mason jars and creating solar lights. The jars consist of a solar panel which is connected to a battery which in turn is connected to a tiny light bulb. During the day, the solar panel will take and store the energy it obtains from light into a battery. Once the panel is blocked from the light, the light bulb inside the jar will shine without the need of plugging it into an outlet. We hope to expand this project. We want to create more ideas for the designs of the solar jars and to begin selling them to costumers. We hope to make people realize the power of solar energy and how something this little can make a difference in the world.
- Earth Braids: We are making bracelets out of colored plastic bags. The colored bags can’t be recycled, so we thought of a new, creative way to recycle them. We decided to sell them for $3 per bracelet. We have sold over 50 bracelets and we’ve made around $150 (these proceeds go towards future projects for our Earth YES! class). We have also made some cancer and mental health awareness bracelets. We are planning to sell them and donate the proceeds to The American Cancer Foundation and TWLOHA. We think a lot of people will invest in these and we will be able to raise a lot of money for a good cause. It’s amazing how something so simple could make such a big difference.
