Thus there is the growing concern that the earth’s natural resources and raw materials are being rapidly used and their rate of replenishment or recovery is not matching up to the depletion rate. In response to this concern there have been many campaigns and initiatives to encourage the sustainable use and conservation of natural resources. Recycling is just one of multiple ways to answer to the call to “save our planet” and effectively does so when done in large numbers. The phrase “Recycle, reduce and re-use” has been one of the most used phrases to capture the essence of recycling campaigns.

Recycling is one of those good practices that is easy to do and rewarding to the recycler. It is therefore important that it be practised at every level of society- in each home and household and all the way to large private and public institutions, from young people to elderly folk. NATHouse- a student-run structure (faculty house) within the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Pretoria – decided to run a recycling competition for primary schools in Mamelodi in order to raise awareness about the importance of recycling in township schools, where most people either do not know how to go about it or just do not pay attention to it because it has never been made to matter to them before.

This document (CLICK HERE) is a report compiled to highlight the events before, during and culminating the rolling out of this competition to the eleven participating schools. It is our hope as NATHouse that the report will give meaningful information about the initiative we undertook and that it will also land in many more hands that will take it, read it and respond to it as sincerely and seriously as we have approached this competition. For photos of this remarkable event.CLICK HERE