Sandy McKay: Recycled

By PHILIP ENGLISH

Every year rubbish weighing the equivalent of 166,666 elephants, or about 500,000 tonnes, is collected in Auckland for burial in landfills.

Information like that changes the life of a young boy taking on a school recycling project in Recycled, a new children's book by Dunedin author Sandy McKay.

The boy, Colin, takes recycling to heart and in the process tries to convert his indifferent family to the movement and save a local recycling centre from being sold to developers.

For budding environmentalists, the book contains facts on the stream of waste inundating nations of the world and how to reduce, reuse and recycle as well as how to create a worm farm.

Sandy McKay says Recycled, her first published fiction children's book, is about how children can influence their families on issues such as recycling in spite of busy 21st century lives.

"It is up to Colin to get the family on the straight and narrow, but he doesn't really do it in a great way," she says.

Colin has instructions for running a worm farm, and for making recycled paper.

Illustrations in the book are by Dunedin artist Jenna Packer.

* Recycled is for 9 to 14-year-olds and is published by Longacre Press.