Haven't signed into your Scholastic account before?
Teachers, not yet a subscriber?
Subscribers receive access to the website and print magazine.
You are being redirecting to Scholastic's authentication page...
Announcements & Tutorials
Renew Now, Pay Later
Sharing Google Activities
2 min.
Setting Up Student View
Exploring Your Issue
Using Text to Speech
Join Our Facebook Group!
1 min.
Subscriber Only Resources
Access this article and hundreds more like it with a subscription to Science World magazine.
Article Options
Presentation View
Boards for Bees
MARK PASSMORE/APEX
RECYCLED HIVE: Volunteers use plastic bodyboards collected from beaches to build better homes for honeybees.
COURTESY OF QUINCE HONEY FARM
When people head to beaches in the United Kingdom, they often bring along bodyboards to ride the waves. But the flimsy boards—which are made of a lightweight plastic called polystyrene—break easily. Their pieces often end up littering shorelines. Now an environmental group is reusing the wrecked boards for a sweet purpose—to help honeybees.
Last summer, volunteers with Keep Britain Tidy collected a whopping 480 discarded bodyboards from two beaches in the U.K. The organization donated most of the boards to a local farm to line its beehives. Heat can’t easily pass through polystyrene, making it an excellent insulator and great for keeping bees warm during the winter.
The graph below shows the most common types of trash collected from beaches around the world. What other items in the same category as bodyboards likely frequently wash up on beaches?
SOURCE: UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM, 2012
RELATED CONTENT