Millions of Cans Recycled: A Real-Life Fairy Tale About Environmental Education

In November 2023, a meaningful project called the “Million Cans Recycling Contest” was launched, attracting the participation of eight elementary schools across the U.S. This contest not only created a useful playground but also brought impressive results: more than 1.3 million cans were recycled in just six months.

According to a published article, this project is the result of “Recycling is Like Magic,” a team of three passionate individuals: Jessica Alexanderson, Brad W. Rudover, and Shaziya M. Jaffer. They wrote a children’s book titled “The Girl Who Recycled 1 Million Cans.”

In the book, the main character is a little girl named Ellie who loves unicorns. She discovers she can earn money by recycling aluminum cans at a local scrapyard. With the dream of buying a unicorn, Ellie is determined to collect one million cans. Her friends join her, and the whole school pitches in to achieve this challenging goal.

Jessica Alexanderson, the project’s founder, shared, “The ‘Recycling is Like Magic’ team turned this story into a reality, minus the unicorn.” She also revealed that the contest will enter its third year in the fall of 2025. From “Recycling is Like Magic,” the organization has evolved into a nonprofit called The Recycling Society, which officially launched on Earth Day, April 22, this year. Becoming a nonprofit has opened up more funding opportunities for the project.

“Our goal is to improve the aluminum can recycling rates in this country,” Alexanderson said. “Unfortunately, they’re going down, only at 43%, and it’s a solvable problem. We’re trying to solve the problem by teaching little kids to never throw cans in the garbage and by making it super fun and easy for them.”

The contest is held in elementary schools and focuses on third graders. Although students from other grades can also contribute, third graders lead the charge.

When a school joins, all third graders receive a copy of “The Girl Who Recycled 1 Million Cans.” After collecting enough cans, the school contacts a partnering local scrapyard, which comes to collect and weigh the cans. Depending on the scrapyard, the school can earn anywhere from 35 to 95 cents per pound of cans. The scrapyard also sends a copy of the scale ticket to The Recycling Society to record the number of cans the school has recycled.

Alexanderson added, “Now that the schools know that the cans have value, it’s like the light bulb went off. It’s not a ton of money, but it all adds up over time. And for those little schools that need help, it’s the easiest way the community can help them.”

Participating schools will be divided into four regions. The school that recycles the most cans per participating student in each region will receive $1,000. Third-grade classes that reach the 75,000-can milestone will be rewarded with a pizza party. Any school that recycles 150,000 cans wins a $500 bonus. In states with three or more participating schools, the top school also receives an additional $500. Nationally, the top three schools will win $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000, respectively.

This prize money is in addition to the funds schools earn from their local scrapyards.

The scrapyards play a crucial role in the contest, facilitating can transportation and fundraising. Alexanderson shared her dream: “My dream would be for every state in the country and every single scrapyard to help with one or two schools. That’s how we would make the change.”

According to statistics from The Recycling Society, over the past two years, more than 3.5 million cans have been recycled through the contest, with 36 schools participating across 12 states. The impact of recycling over 3.5 million cans is significant. According to The Recycling Society, it takes 95% less energy to produce a can from recycled aluminum than from raw materials.

Alexanderson emphasized the importance of recycling: “We need to be proud of these cans because so many of them are made right here in the U.S.A. But since everybody keeps throwing them in the garbage, we have to keep importing raw aluminum. If we can just keep reusing all of our cans instead of putting them in a landfill, we would really cut back. That’s a huge impact.”

For the 2025-2026 contest, The Recycling Society is looking to expand from 36 schools to 50. As the contest continues to grow, it hopes to spread the mission of recycling aluminum cans. By making recycling convenient and appealing to students, The Recycling Society is helping to raise the national aluminum can recycling rate.

According to: Recyclingtoday.com