Pro-D, a Plastic Shredder, and 70 Years of Throwaway Culture
Last October, I loaded up my truck with a plastic shredder, a pizza oven, a press and drove to Columneetza Secondary in Williams Lake, BC.
It was Pro-D day for School District 27. I had an afternoon slot, a chemistry lab, and a group of teachers who had just come in from an outdoor session that morning — energized, looking a little windswept, and ready to talk plastic
I was nervous in the best way.
The workshop was called Our Local Circular Economy: Understanding Systems & Inspiring Action. In three hours, we moved through the basics of circular economy thinking, took a look at how BC's recycling system actually works — it's more progressive, and more interesting, than most people realize — and then got hands-on with the machines.
I walked teachers through each stage of the process: shredding, pressing, the full small-scale recycling arc from waste to object. Questions came fast. About BC's recycling system and policy. About resin types. About what actually happens to plastic waste locally. And then one of the participants — a high school biology teacher — held up the finished pressed tile and asked if he could keep it.
He wanted to use it as a hall pass.
One of the discussion topics that came up, that I keep thinking about:
For the vast majority of human history, the materials people used — wood, metal, clay, fibre — could be repaired, repurposed, returned to the earth, or remade. Circularity wasn’t a goal or a framework to aspire towards - it was default.
The industrial revolution (think early 19th century) is when linear production really began - mass manufacturing, extraction at scale. Goods were still relatively expensive, so the repair culture was strong. People mended things. Nothing was disposable quite yet.
In the early to mid 1900’s is when it accelerated. Post WW2 manufacturing capacity needed new markets. If you can believe it, “planned obsolescence" aka disposability was coined back in the 1930’s. Single use plastic packaging exploded in the 1960’s and the throwaway culture we know, depend on, and loathe, has been around since.
Which means we've only been doing it this way for about sixty or seventy years. It’s an anomaly.
In that room, we zoomed in and out — policy, resin types, local systems, personal experience — and landed somewhere unexpected: we've forgotten how to engage with our materials and our environment. Can we change that relationship? Plastic is precious. That afternoon reminded me why that's the banner I work under.
That’s the experience I’m trying to create.
I’ve learned that people don’t need more information about sustainability. They need an experience that makes the concept feel real, close, possible - not abstract and global. The moment someone watches plastic flakes compress into a usable object, circularity stops being theoretical. It becomes obvious. Inevitable, even.
So I’ve stopped front-loading the content. I get people doing something ASAP, and the learning comes alongside.
With the SD27 teachers, once we got up and gathered around the machines the conversation really shifted. The questions changed, the possibilities and ideas started flowing. They started connecting what they were seeing with their own classrooms, their students, their own personal recycling practices, and in their communities. I’m already looking forward to going back - this time with more specialized equipment.
Teachers are multipliers. One educator who genuinely understands the local waste system - who has held a piece of recycled plastic thing they made with their own hands - can reach hundreds of students over a career. That’s the ripple effect that this workshop is designed to create.
Bring this to your Pro-D
I offer this workshop for school districts across BC and Alberta. I'm based in Williams Lake and am happy to travel. The session runs three hours, fits a standard classroom, and leaves teachers with a clearer picture of our local recycling systems, practical ideas for their classrooms, and — if the afternoon goes well — something made from recycled plastic to take home. I’ve actually built out a whole mobile recycling studio - a cargo trailer where participants are invited to shred, transform, and rethink plastic waste.
If you're a Pro-D coordinator or school administrator, reach out: emma@delverecycled.ca
If you're a teacher — forward this to whoever books your Pro-D days. That's the most useful thing you can do with it.
And if you have a high school biology teacher who needs a hall pass, I definitely know a place.
Delve Recycled is a small-scale recycling studio and sustainability consultancy based in Williams Lake, BC — on unceded Secwepemc territory. We transform locally collected plastic into products, workshops, and community action.
www.delverecycled.ca | emma@delverecycled.ca