Return-It School teams up with Science World's BC Green Games
We are pleased to announce that Science World’s BC Green Games contest, and Encorp Pacific’s Return-It School program will team up once again to offer the Return-It Trip prize to BC schools, province-wide. The Return-It Trip prize is a collaboration between BC Green Games, an eco-storytelling contest and the Return-It School beverage container recycling program, to offer remote schools a free field trip and travel subsidy to Science World British Columbia in Vancouver. Last year, the popular prize inspired twenty green teams from all over BC to take action, educate and get creative with beverage container recycling.
In 2016, elementary school green teams from Zeballos and Alert Bay, BC, made a very special trip to Science World British Columbia in Vancouver to celebrate their award-winning BC Green Games projects, thanks to Encorp Pacific and Science World. The $3000 travel subsidy was shared between two teams: Zeballos Elementary-Secondary School and T'lisalagi’lakw School. These teams did an excellent job of documenting the unique challenges they had to overcome in order to institute and run beverage container recycling programs in remote areas.
Teams that choose to compete for the Return-It Trip prize look for innovative ways to incorporate beverage container recycling in their school and community and creatively communicate the importance of keeping these items out of the landfill in a video or photo essay contest submission. Preference for this prize is given to teams for whom distance creates a substantial barrier to attending their BC Green Games celebration field trip, which can take place at one of five participating BC Science Centres.
“Opportunities like the BC Green Games free field trips and the Return-It Trip travel subsidy are so important for BC’s more remote schools. Travel in and out of these places is not only costly, it’s not exactly easy. These teams travelled for over eight hours by way of two ferries and public transit to attend their celebration. For many of these kids, this was their first trip to Vancouver and it really means a lot for them to get to experience the city’s cultural and educational resources,” said Sandy Sigmund, V.P. & Chief Marketing Officer at Encorp Pacific.
The relationship between BC Green Games and the Return-It School program is a natural one and the decision to create the Return-It Trip prize was exciting for both organizations. The BC Green Games and Return-It School programs are committed to supporting schools across the province with engaging programming in the area of environmental stewardship. By linking the programs together, the organizations are better able to acknowledge the efforts of young environmental stewards and celebrate the stories of environmental action taking place across BC.
This year we are proud to collaborate with an excellent group of recycling stewards to present the BC Green Games program. New to the program is ReGeneration, the consumer facing brand of Product Care Association, a not-for-profit organization responsible for special waste recycling. They are offering the ReGeneration School Mural prize, a special recognition for those projects that focus on more artistic themes and will celebrate the winning school’s commitment to protecting the environment with a mural created with recycled paint.
Back in the Green Games are the Viewer’s Choice Prize sponsors Call2Recycle, Canada’s go-to for battery recycling. Call2Recycle not only hosts this prize, which is a great way to encourage project sharing, they also host battery drives at Science World. These battery drives work to increase public knowledge of battery recycling resources.
To view the winning projects and to learn more about the Return-It Trip and BC Green Games, you can visit www.bcgreengames.ca