Nothing Is Rubbish Part 2: Recycling

An assembly from the Culham St Gabriel archive

Suitable for Whole School (Pri) - Church Schools

Aims

To encourage us to think about recycling rubbish and what we are like on the inside.

Preparation and materials

• You may wish to familiarize yourself with the previous assembly in this series:
  
  - ‘Nothing Is Rubbish Part 1: Wonderful Rubbish!’, available at:
  
  
• Gather bits of rubbish – cartons, bottles, paper, vegetable peelings, tin cans and so on – to form a pile to show the children at the beginning of the assembly.
  
  
• Have available an image of the recycling symbol and the means to display it during the assembly. An example is available at: https://tinyurl.com/nadz9dr

Assembly

1. Show the pile of rubbish to the children.
   
   Revisit the children’s ideas that they put forward in the ‘Wonderful Rubbish!’ assembly as you talk about what the pile looks like, how it makes us feel, why it’s there and whether it’s a good thing.
   
   Ask the children if there is anything good that we could do with the rubbish.
   
   
2. Show the image of the recycling symbol.
   
   Ask the children if they know what the symbol means. Look for the recycling symbol on items in the pile of rubbish and hold up any items that show it.
   
   Talk about how we can recycle our rubbish, turning something useless into something useful.
   
   
3. When we look at a pile of rubbish, what we see is the bits that people don’t want or think are no good. We think of the rubbish as useless.
   
   Sometimes, we can feel that people don’t want us to be their friend, or that we are no good at something such as maths or running. That can make us feel unwanted and useless, and that’s not a good feeling.

Time for reflection

We need to remember that each one of us has a special talent, an ability to do something well. Although we may not feel that we are good at things, with help from others and our own determination, we can work on our inadequacies, build on our strengths and turn ourselves into something special.

Prayer
There’s something deep inside of me
That other people do not always see.
I know it’s good, I know it’s there
And if I treat it with great care
And practise, I will shout out loud
About my gifts that make me proud!

Follow-up ideas

• Think about how we can ‘recycle’ things within ourselves. We can change something negative into a positive: we can always start again!
  
  
• Read the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19 as an example of someone who recycled himself!
  
  
• Explore the various processes of recycling by using books and videos.
  
  
• Share ideas about why recycling is a good thing and why it might make God pleased, in terms of us valuing and caring for the world that he has given us.