Soda cans were fashioned into lotus-like ashtrays. Plastic Coke bottles were trimmed into humidifiers. And ice-lolly sticks were adorned with fanciful decorations to be used as key chains.

These handicrafts were made by teenaged students at Beijing Yucai School to celebrate the 40th Earth Day on Thursday.

"The handicrafts were made by my classmates, who got the idea of using the wasted cans, bottles and boxes to create something beautiful and useful," said a student volunteer selected to help the school campaign for a low-carbon lifestyle.

The school, together with the Beijing Red Cross Youth and the Roots and Shoots from Jane Goodall Institute China, held the celebration as a start of an eight-month campaign to persuade people to lead low-carbon life. Their proposals include saving water and electricity, planting trees, riding bicycles instead of driving, and limiting use of throw-away products.

"The low carbon concept is everywhere in life," said the famous singer Tian Yuan, who participated in the event. "I made a broken necklace into buttons on my jacket and created a brooch with wasted materials."

Her opinion is echoed by a family surnamed Bao that uses fans instead of air conditioning on hot days, turns worn-out clothes into bags to carry foods, and waters their flowers with the water they used to wash rice and vegetables.

"Earth is our home," said Bao Anda, the youngest in the family and a junior at Yucai. "To love Earth is to love our home."