Picking up litter may not seem an appealing way for kids to spend their time, but a Canberra waste initiative hopes to change that.
The people behind Trash Gather, a youth-run organisation which holds regular clean-ups around the city, are taking to the classroom with a workshop to teach children recycling is "far from the perfect solution" to mounting environmental concerns.
Founder Maddie Diamond said the Rubbish Rangers workshop, created for primary school students, would teach kids about more than good recycling habits.
"We wanted to teach students about rubbish as a whole, how it's made and how it's used and how that can have an impact and also what happens when we dispose of it," she said.
"We wanted to give a more full system view about how it all works, that there are more impacts than just littering. I'm very aware that at school they might not have the time and resources to necessarily learn about it in class."
Ms Diamond said the 90-minute workshop would fill a gap in the current curriculum, which incorporated important lessons on sustainability, but didn't necessarily cover the broader waste system.
"There's a lot of talk about ecological impacts and things like that but less about the whole system and how we're producing all this stuff we don't need," she said.
"Ninety-one per cent of plastic ever produced has not been recycled. This is a problem that needs to be addressed at the source and our young people need to be aware of the bigger picture."
Ms Diamond said a vital part of the program was changing students' attitudes to rubbish collection.
"Some kids think picking up rubbish is super fun, some see it as more of a punishment," she said.
Launched from a $10,000 Commonwealth government grant, the workshop will initially be taken to up to 10 schools in Canberra's north.
Rubbish Rangers schools coordinator Bailey Lutton said the program was limited to schools in the Fenner electorate because the grant had been obtained through MP Andrew Leigh.
"Hopefully it gains interest so we can continue it further and really get the next generation knowing about this stuff before it's too late," he said.
Mr Lutton said some schools had already expressed interest and hoped to kick the program off this term and return to more classrooms in Term 4.
Trash Gather clean-ups had been put on hold during the coronavirus lockdown and the group held the first in months on Sunday.
Volunteers gathered at Cooleman Court in Weston Creek, despite the wet weather, to lend a hand.
