September fills classrooms once again, and backpacks along with them. Books, notebooks, clothing, school supplies, and devices are all part of a back-to-school ritual traditionally associated with buying new. Yet a range of educational projects are showing that starting a new school year doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch. The principles of the circular economy, it turns out, can be woven directly into students’ daily routines.
This approach to managing resources is about keeping things in use: finding them a new owner, repairing them, or repurposing materials. Schools are especially fertile ground for that philosophy, since it doubles as a learning tool in its own right.
Uniforms ready for a second round in the classroom
Few images capture the start of the school year better than a brand-new uniform. But a shirt or a pair of pants can become unusable for a student simply because they’ve grown, even if the garment itself is still in perfectly good condition.
That’s the problem Uni4me, a school and sportswear company based in Mataró, Spain, is tackling. Its initiative for bringing circular economy practices to school uniforms centers on a digital platform designed to manage the return, sorting, and destination of garments. Families will be able to return items, earn vouchers, swap used uniforms, and track each product's journey via a QR code that ensures traceability.
The system offers different paths depending on a garment’s condition. Pieces still fit for use can be refurbished or exchanged, others will be transformed through upcycling, and when keeping the original product is no longer feasible, its fabric and fibers will be repurposed to make new items.
The project, which runs through April 2027 with support from the Biodiversity Foundation, has set a goal of channeling 10% of the company’s garment sales into the reuse pipeline, with an additional 35% earmarked for recycling. Outgrowing a uniform no longer has to mean the end of the line for it.
A flea market where there's no need to buy
At IES Monterroso, a public high school in Estepona, Málaga, the same idea takes shape around a different set of objects. Over the course of several days, books, clothing, games, toys, and other items their owners no longer need come together at the school’s Circular Flea Market. There, they can find a new owner, free of charge, ready to put them to use again.
The initiative launched in 2024 and has since become a recurring fixture. In February 2026, the school held its latest edition during recess periods and, once it wrapped up, announced it would return again the following year.
From lunch tray to the garden bed
Other materials call for a different kind of journey. In the Biodiversity Gardens program run by the Global Nature Foundation and Ecoembes, food scraps from students’ lunches can end up as compost, while certain packaging finds new life as seed trays.
The program uses the school garden as a hands-on learning space for topics like composting, waste reduction, and resourcefulness. In 2025 alone, it reached 410 schools, supported more than 880 teachers, and engaged close to 1,000 students through 36 workshops.
The garden lets students witness and take part in processes that can otherwise feel abstract on paper. Organic matter breaks down and returns to the soil as a nutrient, a seed grows into a plant, and everyday materials can take on functions entirely different from the ones they were originally made for.
Repairing is also learned
Repair adds yet another layer to the picture. At Vedruna Vilafranca, in Vilafranca del Penedès, Barcelona, the project “Per un món més just fem Labdoo” (“For a fairer world, we do Labdoo\") invites ninth-grade students to get directly involved in refurbishing computers that had fallen out of use.
Students inspect and prepare the machines before they’re handed off to Labdoo, a network that distributes refurbished devices to schools and other institutions in need. The initiative is part of the school's community service program and has since become embedded in its broader educational activities. Its track record earned recognition in 2024 with the Consolidation and Impact Award at the Service-Learning Awards.
A computer that once seemed to have reached the end of its useful life becomes an educational tool twice over: once for the student who learns by restoring it, and again for whoever eventually puts it to use.
Uniforms, books, toys, food waste, and computer equipment all point to the same lesson: circularity can take many different forms within a school. A school’s everyday activities can show that resources have a longer life ahead of them than they appear to, and that conserving, sharing, and repairing are always an option.
