Recycle and Play: Awesome DIY Zero-Waste Projects to Make for Kids – 50 Fun Learning Activities for Ages 3-6

Price: $24.99 - $20.29
(as of Sep 12, 2026 10:15:59 UTC – Details)


Have fun, create, learn, and help the planet with the young kids in your life through 50 colorful, enriching activities made from stuff you already have.
With Recycle and Play, learn how to transform cardboard, bubble wrap, lids, containers, egg cartons, and other things that might otherwise be headed to a landfill into hours of engaging play at home. The fun, process-oriented projects invite children to be creative, explore senses, develop skills, and discover how things work, all while reinforcing the importance of reducing waste as part of a sustainable lifestyle.
In this book, you’ll find tips on how to extend play and learning for each project as well as helpful hints to engage your kids to come up with fun additions and extensions of their own.
While each of the projects includes clear step-by-step instructions and materials lists, you should feel free to adjust to your child’s interests and the materials you have on hand.
Organized by the type of material used, the zero-waste projects include:
  Car Garage and Ramp made from toilet paper tubes and cardboard (Learning Skills: Fine motor skills, creative play, and color recognition) Mess-Free Bubble Wrap Painting (Learning Skills: Art, sensory exploration, creative skills, color recognition) Busy Board Lid Activity (Learning Skills: Fine motor skills, cognitive skills) Alligator Letter Feed made from egg cartons (Learning Skills: Letter recognition, fine motor skills) Milk Carton School Bus with family photos (Learning Skills: Social development, cognitive skills) Matching Memory Game made from wipe lids (Learning Skills: Cognitive skills, fine motor skills, memory, object recognition)
Bond with your child, help them learn through play, and instill a lifelong respect for the environment with Recycle and Play.

From the Publisher

FANTASTIC FOOD BOXES

You’ll never look at a cereal, snack, or pizza box the same after you see some of the fun activities in Recycle and Play. Create a fun bean toss game from a pizza box, transform a cereal box into a fun elephant feeding game, or relive your childhood with ravenous hippos. Make characters come alive, practice dexterity, and learn shapes all while having fun with boxes.

CREATIVE CARDBOARD CREATIONS

Cardboard is one of the most fun and versatile recyclable materials out there. Cardboard can be a blank canvas for creating anything you want and imagine. Making puzzles is one of our favorite ways to create with cardboard. Make it more challenging by tracing lines and shapes, incorporating early math, or talking to kids about emotions.

PLAYFUL PAPER TUBE PROJECTS

With the humble paper tube, you can make one of your favorite animals and practice learning colors and threading. You can zoom around with paper tube cars in a paper tube garage or hone cutting skills by creating crazy haircuts.

PAPER TUBE CATERPILLAR THREADING

This rainbow caterpillar can teach kids colors and also makes a fun and easy yarn activity. The shapes of the tubes are large enough so that yarn can easily go through. Kids can focus on learning the motion and movement of how to thread from one tube to another while practicing their fine motor skills.

BEST BUBBLE WRAP PLAY

Bubble wrap is one of the most fun and tactile recycled items to create with. Kids are naturally drawn to the squishy bubbles and the fun texture. And who doesn’t love popping bubble wrap? Its unique sensory feel makes it an ideal material for creating a beautiful mess-free painting, doing stamping activities such as bubble wrap animals, or making clothespin butterflies for textured wings and numbers.

CAPTIVATING LID AND CAP ACTIVITIES

How many lids do you have just lying around the house? Don’t let them go to waste. Use them for this fun turtle activity instead. Turn the lids into turtle shells that are bright and colorful. Then, add on the colored dots to help the kids match up the colors and also work on their counting skills. Slow and steady is a good mantra when working with the kids on counting.

BREATHTAKING BOTTLE IDEAS

Many people toss a bottle into the recycling bin, but we see endless creative possibilities with them. Bottles are empty containers waiting to turn into the most playful characters, like our unicorn bot­tle. They can be stuffed to pretend-feed pigs. Or they can become a fun vehicle for games such as a pompom launcher, which helps children practice the push and pull motions.

MARVELOUS MILK CARTONS AND JUGS

Milk cartons and jugs are so fun because of their playful shapes. Turn cartons into school buses and help with the recognition of familiar family faces. The shape of a carton also looks like a roof, so you have a natural canvas for making milk carton houses to learn shapes. You can also use the natural large cavity of a jug to create a fun sloth toss game.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Quarry Books
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 11, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 136 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0760373183
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0760373187
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 3 – 6 years
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.38 x 10 inches
Grade level ‏ : ‎ Preschool – 1
Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #559 in Children’s Papercrafts Books #663 in STEM Education #1,092 in Children’s Recycling & Green Living Books
Customer Reviews: 4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (82) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Customers find the book filled with awesome and fun projects that keep little ones busy for hours, with creative ideas that transform everyday trash into hands-on learning activities. The book is easy for kids to create, with simple and straightforward instructions, and one customer notes that materials can be found around the house.