Service Learning Approach to Recycling

Abstract

Integrating curriculum-based service learning program into chemistry courses yields many benefits for the students such as improved cognition and practical skills. Additionally the community partner benefits from both the expertise and the services of the class. This paper describes the success story of one such program conducted by students at Madras Christian College. It involves the interaction with informal recyclers and the chemical recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste. The stakeholders of the project were the students, informal recyclers, residential population, and an NGO. The marginalized informal recyclers were brought into mainstream society through formal solid waste collection system. This approach views the recyclers as catalysts to tackle climate change instead of viewing them as a social burden. The public was taught waste segregation and collection methods. On the whole the program resulted in improving the immediate environment and saving a wetland where dumping of waste was carried out.