20th November Use Less Stuff Day

Use Less Stuff Day occurs on the third Thursday of November. This campaign aims to make people realise how we often buy things we don’t use, leading to unnecessary home clutter. Most people live over-consumptive lifestyles, leading to more waste generation and environmental pollution. This is in keeping with the aim of the Sustainable Development Goal #14 Responsible Consumption & Production.

As well as the usual nonfiction books that deal with waste, consumption, garbage, recycling etc, such as these

these picture books tell stories that will start a discussion about 'too much stuff'.

SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

Goal 12  Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

We rely on many natural resources in order to survive. As our economy and society progress, the natural resources that we depend on begin to run out. If the world population reaches 9.6 billion by 2050, we would need three planets worth of resources to keep the same lifestyle we have today.

Each year, an estimated one third of all food produced – equivalent to 1.3 billion tonnes worth around $1 trillion – ends up rotting in the bins of consumers and retailers, or spoiling due to poor transportation and harvesting practices.

Choose a book from here:

 

The children I teach have so many toys so it is easy to start with a discussion of how many are actually needed to make their life sustainable, shopping and whether they need more toys. In the past when I have shared The Surprise Present  by Shane McG with them the discussion has been very lively, so I think reading King Leonard's Teddy  by Phoebe Swan is probably a good place to start with very young children.

Here's the blurb:

King Leonard is so rich that he can buy whatever he wants. Anything old or broken is thrown onto the growing pile of trash outside his castle. But one day something breaks that can't be easily replaced. And what's worse, King Leonard can't find anyone who knows how to fix it.

Then perhaps a book about recycling. There are many books for young children about recycling clothes, but for the students I teach, many of whom have a musical instrument of their own, I think Ada's Violin  by Susan Hood and Sally Wern Comport is a better choice.

Here's the blurb:

The extraordinary true tale of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay, an orchestra made up of children playing instruments built from recycled trash.  
Ada Rios grew up in Cateura, a small town in Paraguay built on a landfill. She dreamed of playing the violin, but with little money for anything but the bare essentials, it was never an option...until a music teacher named Favio Chavez arrived. He wanted to give the children of Cateura something special, so he made them instruments out of materials found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada-and her town-forever changed. 

You will find many film clips online about this amazing orchestra too, so this book can spread to make a great teaching unit. Just search: Recycled Orchestra.

This SDG is already being lived in our playground and classrooms through various rubbish initiatives the school's Sustainability Officer has put into practice, and the teachers spend class time on the environment, plastic use and recycling so for me this is an opportunity to make connections with the world outside school, but alternatively it would be easy to read titles from the list and connect them with the student's own lives.

From the booklet:

Ask • Do you know where your food comes from? How about where the waste goes once you are done eating? Do you think we waste things? What makes you say that?

 

• We read...

 

• This story made me want to...