Hi there! We were just about to head over to a nearby hill to draw some of the beautiful flowers that we can see from there.

Squeaks went to grab his crayons, and he should be back any minute.

Oh, what's wrong, Squeaks?

Oh, I see.

Squeaks is running a little low on his crayons.

We've been doing a lot of coloring lately, and it looks like all of his crayons are kind of worn down.

It makes them a little hard to hold...and really hard to use!

So, he thinks it might be time to toss them out. Hey, I have an idea!

Instead of throwing these old crayons away...why don't we recycle them?

Recycling means taking something we would normally toss into the trash and turning it into something new.

And it's a really simple way to help the Earth!

Good question, Squeaks!

Recycling is a good way to help the Earth because of what happens to trash after it leaves our homes.

A lot of the stuff we throw into the garbage ends up in what's called a landfill.

We use landfills to keep a community's garbage in one area.

Yep, landfill is another word for a dump.

Now, after a while, some of the trash that's in a landfill breaks down, which means it crumbles into smaller pieces and gets eaten by critters like worms that live in the dirt.

Food scraps like apple cores usually break down in a few months, and just become part of the soil.

But plastic bags take a lot longer. It takes 10 to 20 years for them to break down.

Cups and other things made out of Styrofoam can take hundreds of years!

And some things...like glass… basically don't break down at all.

They turn into smaller and smaller pieces, but they don't get eaten.

So they basically just stay there forever.

And that means garbage piles keep getting bigger and bigger!

The problem is… there's only so much room in every landfill.

When one gets full, we need to make a new one.

But when we make new landfills, we sometimes end up taking up space where animals and plants are already living.

And that's not good for them! That's where recycling can help!

A lot of our trash — like paper, plastic, metal, and cans — can get turned into new things that people can use again.

That keeps them out of the landfill.

So when you put trash like this into a recycling bin… you're doing something simple to help the Earth.

And I know a way we can recycle our leftover crayon pieces!

Okay, Squeaks… we're going to keep our old crayons out of the landfill by turning them into new crayons!

If you decide that you want to try this… you definitely want to get some help from a grownup.

You'll only need two things: your old crayons, and some kind of bakeable mold to shape the new crayons in.

Okay, the first thing we need to do is take off any paper that might be around the crayons.

And now, we're ready to put them in our mold.

We need to make sure that the mold can take a little heat…

because we're going to put it in the oven set to a low temperature: like 80°C, or for our US oven, 170° Fahrenheit.

Let's make some that are all one color… and some that are two colors.

And then we put them in in the oven!

And now, we'll need to wait for 8 minutes or so.

While we wait...I have a question for you!

What do you think is going to happen when we heat the crayons?

I'll give you a hint: what happens to ice when it gets warmer?

Right, it melts! And when it melts, it changes shape.

It changes from a solid piece of ice that we can hold in our hand… ...into liquid water that's easier to hold in a cup.

Both the ice in our hand and the water in the cup are made out of the same stuff—water—they just look different.

Well, wax, the stuff that makes up crayons, also melts when it gets too warm—which is why we put those crayon bits in a mold, which will act like a cup when they turn into a liquid.

There is one big difference between ice and our crayons, though— it takes a lot more heat to melt wax than it does to melt ice!

Which is a good thing, otherwise crayons would melt in your hand!

Oh look! It's time to check our crayons!

Ooh, check it out...they're all runny.

They're still the same color they were when we put them in the mold...but they definitely look different than they did before we heated them.

Now, we'll let them cool...and see what happens.

Hmm… Let's guess what will happen while we wait for them to cool!

What happens if we take water from melted ice and put it back in the freezer?

Yep! It turns back into ice. So do you think the same thing will happen with our crayons?

I think so, too. But let's see!

Look, once the wax got cool, it got hard again.

They feel just like our old ones! And let's see…

Yep, it works just like our old ones, too. We successfully recycled them!

And not only did we keep some possible trash out of the landfill… we also learned some cool science!

Come on, Squeaks, let's get coloring!

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