From a galaxy not so far away comes a cartoony band of personified recyclable items based on Star Wars characters. They are the Star Recyclers and they’re here to help South Carolina kids learn to recycle…

In this awesome poster, produced by the South Carolina Office of Solid Waste Reduction and Recycling, the roguish Han Solo and his wookiee copilot Chewbacca, are reimagined as “Can Soda” and “Moobacca” — a plastic milk jug. The Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi is a motor oil bottle known as “Oily One U-Know-Me” and his nemesis Darth Vader, the dark lord of the Sith, is portrayed as “Dark Tire,” a worn out car tire ready to be recycled. Honestly, could there be better way to teach kids about recycling then cribbing Star Wars?

This is just one poster in a collection produced as supplemental material for various South Carolina environmental outreach and education programs, including Action for a Cleaner Tomorrow, a curriculum supplement for teachers. Other posters in the series include themes based on Batman, James Bond, and the Flintstones. You can check out each poster here.

I know I’ll be printing out the Star Recyclers poster — it’ll go right on the fridge for my padawan learners. I may even print one to send to class with my fourth-grader because it’s just a cool poster that could really reach kids and get them thinking about the environment. Great stuff for a classroom bulletin board or the bare cinder block walls of the dreaded cafeteria.