Chapter Eight:

Luke Walker and the recycling

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“Ha ha ha ha,” Luke laughed, “stop it! I’m nearly finished! Let me finish!”

Luke was sitting on the straw in Curly’s shed, trying to knit a blanket for Squirt.

Curly had given birth to Little Squirt a few days after she arrived at her new home and he was the most playful, affectionate little chap Luke had ever met.  Curly hadn’t let Luke come near him at first but after a while she let Squirt go to him.

“Hey!  I nearly dropped another stitch!  Ok, that’s it! I’m putting it away.  I’ll have to finish it at home.”

Luke preferred to do his knitting in the shed on his plot because at home Jared teased him for it.  He had laughed when Luke first asked Nan to teach him.

“Knitting?  That’s what girls do!  You wish you were a girl don’t you Luke?”

“It’s jus’ like makin’ knots at Scouts Jared!  Don’t you make knots at Scouts?”

“Yeah – knots are useful, for camping and sailing and stuff boys do.”

“And knittin’ is turnin’ string into material to make blankets or mats or clothes or tents or anythin’!”

He believed an outlaw should have the skills to make his own things and be self-sufficient.  Knitting was a useful skill.  Nan had been very happy to teach him.

Luke put the half-made blanket back in his bag and played with Squirt until it was time to go home for tea.  He had to be home promptly today because it was Mum’s shopping night and he needed to go with her for his school project.

****

This half term’s topic was The Environment and Mrs Tebbut had started by talking to them about rubbish, waste and plastic pollution.  This was of great interest to Luke.

On the board she wrote:

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

“This week we are going to think about how we can reduce waste by the simple choices we make in our lives,” she began. “Although the amount of rubbish being recycled in this country has increased in recent years, the amount being sent to landfill is also on the increase.  In England, we only recycle about 44% of household waste when in fact 80% of it is recyclable.  This means we all need to try a little bit harder.”

“Or a lot harder,” Luke mouthed to Joe.

“So today I’m going to tell you about The Three Rs: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.  Have any of you heard of this before?”

Lots of blank faces and shaking of heads.

“Ok, well the idea is that, although recycling is very important, we should first try to reduce the amount of stuff we buy in the first place by holding on to the stuff we’ve already got for as long as possible – taking care of it and getting it repaired instead of throwing it away.

“Then, once we have really worn out our stuff and it can’t be repaired anymore, before we throw it out for recycling we should try to think of ways to reuse it.  Old clothes, for example, could be turned into cleaning rags.

“And finally, when we can no longer find a use for something, we should recycle it.”

“Interesting,” thought Luke.

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continues tomorrow 🙂

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