These Hamilton Grade 3s are helping turn Halloween trash into ‘something else’

A Hamilton Grade 3 class is helping make Halloween - and their school - a little greener.

Students at Frank Panabaker Elementary School in Ancaster are asking their peers to save their Snickers, M&Ms and Skittles and other wrappers and bring them to school until Dec. 1, after which they'll be sent to be recycled.

They go to this place where they make all the wrappers into something else," said eight year-old James Johnston who explained that for Halloween he wore an inflatable pick-me-up costume, made to look like an alien abduction.

Like thousand of kids across the city, James and his classmate Hunter McCrea, also eight, came home after trick-or-treating Monday night with dozens of chocolate bars, candies and chips.

My mom brought like a backpack thing with her and I don't think we could even shut it, it was so full," said Hunter, who dressed as a cheerleader for Halloween.

To encourage kids to bring in wrappers, the Grade 3s decorated paper bags - one for each class in the school of about 800 students - and are making regular campaign reminders on the morning announcements.

We made these bags, so if you bring in candy wrappers you put it in and once it's full there's a TerraCycle bin you dump it out," Hunter explained.

TerraCycle spokesperson Shaye DiPasquale said in an email the wrappers, which are generally made from a mix of materials including polypropylene, aluminum and paper, are weighed and processed at the facility.

The plastic components are shredded into small pieces and melted down to form pellets," she said, adding that the pellets can be used to make new products, like outdoor furniture, tubes and floor tiles.

More than 60 households, businesses, organizations and schools bought a Zero Waste Box to collect Halloween candy wrappers, as a way of keeping them from ending up in landfill, DiPasquale said. The school's costs was $161.

Frank Panabaker is a designated EcoSchool, a certification program to nurture environmental awareness in elementary and secondary kids in Canada, which means they frequently run initiatives related to environment and climate change.

Art teacher and EcoSchool chair Kristen Ortwein, who is running the candy-wrapper initiative with Grade 3 classroom teacher Allison Turnbull, said it's a doable" project for busy teachers, and hopes to inspire other schools to try it next year.

Plus, it's popular among kids, she said.

Kids have fun," she said. They love candy, they love helping the earth. It's a win-win."

Kate McCullough is an education reporter at The Spectator. kmccullough@thespec.com