Education center Gleiß – „Collect casually instead of throwing away uncool“
From 15 to 17 October 2018, the “Education center Gleiß (Lower Austria)” held project days on the topic of “Correct collection of old electrical appliances and batteries”. This initiative was initiated by the Austrian coordination body for waste electrical and electronic equipment (EAK) in cooperation with the waste management association for the region Amstetten. The education center Gleiß acts as a pilot school in Lower Austria, with the target of expanding this environmental educational project to as many other school locations throughout Austria as possible.
Students of all classes and types of schools can inform themselves for three days in school workshops and excursions to METRAN recycling center about the correct collection and recycling of old electrical appliances (EAG) and used batteries / rechargeable batteries. They were accompanied by waste consultants. For the workshops, EAK provided the used electronics and batteries school kit with valuable teaching materials, developed by them.
Playfully learn responsibility
15 classes at the education center Gleiß spent three days working intensively on waste prevention and waste separation, focusing on used electrical appliances, batteries and rechargeable batteries. At the press conference, Mag. Giehser, Managing Director of EAK, explained that the idea behind this school project was based on the dedicated work of waste consultants who have been running workshops in schools all over Austria for many years. Since 2014, they have also used the used electronics and batteries school kits developed by the EAK in cooperation with Austria’s waste consultants as an environmental didactic tool. With the school kit, pupils from 8 to 18 years are introduced to the topics of recycling, scarcity of raw materials and environmental effects very vividly and playfully. Using the example of a disassembled smartphone, the young people become acquainted with the various raw materials of their constant companion and learn in this way that mobile phones that are no longer used still have enormous value and therefore shouldn’t be discarded in dusty drawers and certainly not in in residual waste. Furthermore, Mag. Giehser emphasizes that only through the separate collection of used electronics and batteries the valuable substances can be recycled, reused as secondary raw materials and pollutants can be treated in an environmentally compatible manner.
Learning together, collecting together
As part of the school project days, a special collection day for used small electrical appliances and batteries was organized for the school on Wednesday, October 17, 2018. Thereby, e.g. mobile phones, irons, blenders, coffee makers, electric pepper mills, electric toothbrushes, shavers, blood pressure monitors, radios, CD players, VCRs, including remote control, drilling machines, laptops, printers, other small appliances were collected. For this purpose, the GDA Amstetten provided the school with the required collection containers and a collective truck starting at 6.30. There was the opportunity for all educators, parents and students to bring their old small electrical appliances and old batteries / rechargeable batteries on this day. And, in addition, a contest was held in which the class that collected the biggest amount of broken household gadgets received a cash amount of EUR 500 for the class box from the EAK.
The lucky winners were two combined 1st grades from elementary school. We congratulate sincerly!
