Are you ready to pick up some litter, cycle to school or use a cotton hankie to blow your nose?
These and many more ideas are all ways you can take part in a huuuge global challenge this coming month. It’s called No Waste November, or #NWN for short, and it will show that we can all do our bit to stop throwing away so much rubbish and help our planet stay healthy.
Bright ideas
We’ve got some bright ideas from two young green champions – Barbara, who’s 8, and Margaux, who’s 13. And we’ve teamed up again with our friends from Roots & Shoots, which is run by the famous chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall. (More about Jane in our article here.)
Barbara’s already making Christmas decorations from waste paper and cardboard. Margaux’s been trying out old toys bought from market stalls.
Barbara’s amazing decorations made from waste paper 
Barbara with her Christmas tree made of things she saved from the bin
But there’s plenty more ways to get involved. Roots and Shoots have made a whole calendar for November, with something to try every day of the month…
Your turn!
Now, of course, there’s no limit on how many of them you feel like doing. But the big idea is to pick one thing that you will do in November (and keep it up later!).
Print a copy of the Roots and Shoots Pledge Card here. Write on it what you’ve chosen to do. Then get your mum or dad to take your picture holding your pledge and send it to us at info@wow-news.eu. We’ll post your pic on the WoW! News Facebook page @mywownews with the hashtag #NoWasteNovember.
Top Five
To get you going, we’ve drawn up our own WoW! Top Five solutions you can try at home – and we at WoW! will be joining in too!
1. Water bottle
Do you know that we humans throw away 1 million plastic bottles every single minute? A lot of them mess up our countryside and the oceans, harming wildlife. Stop! Get yourself a bottle you can reuse and keep it in your schoolbag. No more waste!
2. Out with gel, in with soap
Do you have shower gel in bottles in your house? It’s those plastic bottles again! Switching to old-fashioned bars of soap – or new fangled “solid shower gel” – can cut plastic waste. You can even get solid shampoo, these days. And if you’re feeling adventurous, why not try making soap at home?
3. Break a break-time habit
Do you like a biscuit or an energy bar at break-time? All nicely wrapped from a shop? Why not ask mum or dad if you can make your own snacks? That way you save lots of packaging and energy that goes into factory-made food. It’s great fun. And it’s probably better for you. Bake your biscuits or slice up a fruit salad and you’ll help the planet too!
4. Play it again
Old toys and games are part of more than 30 kg of rubbish that every single person in Europe throws away every month. That’s the weight of an average 10-year-old boy! Why not give your old toys and books to someone who’ll use them? And how about trying second-hand things yourself? Ask mum or dad about places or websites you might use!
5. Make it yourself !
Just take a look in your bin – there’s loads of stuff we throw away that could be made into something useful. Getting creative is a great way to recycle rubbish and have fun at the same time. If you’re looking for ideas to start, check out videos like this one.
Voice of the experts
Do you have an idea yet of what you’ll do for the No Waste November challenge? Still not quite sure? Let’s hear from our experts…
Barbara 
Margaux
Barbara, 8
”I don’t want to be one of those people who pollute the planet!” Barbara told WoW! News. She picks up litter when she finds it in the playground and puts it in the bin (and then she washes her hands!). Barbara also loves making decorations out of rubbish. What does she decorate? Well, the Christmas tree, of course! But not just at Christmas. In Barbara’s house they keep their tree all year and dress it up for other holidays. Do you have an Easter tree?!
Margaux, 13
Margaux is a whizz for recycling. She loves her different bins! She has a bin for paper and cardboard, a bin for food waste like vegetable peel and tea bags… At school, she makes sure that old pens and glue sticks and whatnot also get put in a special bin for recycling. She says: “Ideally, everything should be used again!”
Margaux also likes to give new life to old toys and books – she likes to find things at a second-hand market or pick out second-hand books on a store online.
Action!
So, are you set for the challenge?
Remember, download your Roots & Shoots Pledge Card here, write down your promise to do something new in November – and send us your photo to info@wow-news.eu!
We look forward to seeing you!
