Have you heard of “unboxing”? It’s the phenomenon of removing a newly purchased product from its packaging and examining its features, while recording yourself and then sharing the content online. Kids toys, mobiles phones, hair straighteners, make-up – you’ll find unboxing videos galore.
Between Black Friday and Christmas, we enter peak unboxing season as shopping spikes. Expect even more delivery vans zipping up and down your road from now until Christmas Eve.
We’ll unpack the items dispatched, stuff the packaging in the bin and maybe re-wrap some of them again as gifts. These will be unwrapped again by the recipients, and the wrapping – and sometimes even the gift itself – will be binned.
Thousands of primary school children around Ireland are getting their own deliveries this month. The timing couldn’t be better. It’s not toys, mobile phones, hair straighteners or make-up they are unboxing in class, but litter-picking equipment.
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Picker Pal kits, sent to 1,376 classrooms in Ireland, comprise a litter picking-up tool, gloves and the obligatory high-vis vest of course, along with classroom materials and reward badges. The box turns into a poster for the classroom. Over the next year, their teachers will organise for each child to take the kit home on a rota system.
The programme is delivered by Voice in Ireland and supported by the Department of the Environment and many local authorities.
“The main aim of Picker Pals is to let young children take the lead as environmentalists at home and in their communities,” says Picker Pals programme manager Gary Jones. “They do this by leading their family on litter-picking adventures around the local area,” says Jones.
“Being put in charge of the operation opens the children’s eyes to their own role in caring for the world around them, and builds positive attitudes later in life.”
The children are excited to use the kit – they don’t get one each, so they have to wait their turn. This rotation keeps it visible in the class throughout the year, says Jones. It’s not a throwaway activity.
The idea is to deliver deep and sustained behavioral change for primary school children around consumption and litter, while also affecting their peers, family and broader community.
There are now about 34,400 students involved in the programme, mostly six- to nine-year-olds. A child is typically accompanied by one to two family members on their litter pick – that’s 86,000 people, the programme estimates.
Picker Pals has removed 22 tonnes of litter from the environment, the scheme estimates. Cans, plastic bottles and lids were among the most frequent litter picked up by children, in a survey of schools that participated in 2022-2023. Organisers anticipate these will have dropped down the ranking thanks to the deposit return scheme and rules around the attachment of caps to bottles.
Some 234 classrooms will participate for the first time this year. Participating schools aren’t unboxing new kits every year. Aware of sustainability, Picker Pals instead sends replenishing “Booster Boxes” to enable them to remain in the programme without too much new stuff.
The kids are showing up for the environment this unboxing season, cleaning up what the adults have left behind. Maybe we can cut our consumption this Christmas and show up for the environment and for our children too.