According to the National Recycling Coalition, the average American discards 7 ½ pounds of garbage everyday. (4) If we were to multiply this number by the number of students at our school, we as a school community generate 3,750 pounds of garbage daily and 675,000 pounds of garbage in a 180-day school year! I think that the students will find this fact to be astounding, which will pique their interest and motivate them to learn more. I want to create a knowledge base for the students concerning recycling and waste and focus on the amount of waste we generate as a school as a starting point.
According to the Connecticut Recycling Coalition, the State of Connecticut has yet to achieve its state set goal of recycling 40% of its waste and Connecticut burns 60% of its trash, which is more than any other state. (5)
The top ten reasons to recycle as published on the National Recycling Coalition website are:
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Good for the Economy American companies rely on recycling programs to provide materials they need to make new products
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Creates Jobs recycling in the U.S. is a $236 billion a year industry. More than 56,000 recycling and reuse enterprises employ 1.1 million workers worldwide
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Good for the Environment recycling requires far less energy, uses fewer natural resources and keeps waste from piling up in landfills
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Saves Energy Recycling offers significant energy savings over manufacturing with virgin materials
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Preserves Landfill Space recycling preserves existing landfill space
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Prevents Global Warming in 2000, recycling of solid waste prevented the release of 32.9 million metric tons of carbon equivalent into the air
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Reduces Water Pollution making goods from recycled materials reduces generates far less water pollution than manufacturing from virgin materials
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Protects Wildlife using recycled materials reduces the need to damage forests, wetlands, rivers and other places essential to wildlife
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Creates New Demand recycling and buying recycled products creates demand for more recycled products, decreasing waste and helping our economy (6)
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Recycling is not only important, it is the law! I know that many students are not aware of the fact that recycling certain items is the law in Connecticut. The following items are required by law to be recycled: glass and metal food and beverage containers, corrugated cardboard, newspaper, white office paper (residences exempt), scrap metal, Ni-Cd rechargeable batteries (from consumer products) waste oil (crankcase oil from internal combustion engines), storage batteries (from motor vehicles), leaves (must be composted), grass clippings (banned from disposal - should be left on the lawn or, if necessary, composted). (7) There are many more things that can be recycled, but this is the minimum under Connecticut state law. In 2003, EPA reported the energy savings from recycling in the US accounted for roughly 1,486 trillion Btu in energy savings - an amount equivalent to the consumption of 11.9 billion gallons of gasoline or 256 million barrels of crude oil! (8)
Of course the reasons to recycle are compelling enough. However, it is important for students to understand what can actually be made from these materials. According to www.americarecyclesday.org glass beverage containers can be recycled over and over again. They can be used to make roads, marbles, decorative tiles, surfboards and many other things; (9) five plastic soda bottles (PET) yield enough fiber for one extra large T-shirt, one square foot of carpet or enough fiber to fill one ski jacket. (10)
While reviewing all the reasons to recycle, it is important for students to truly understand these reasons and the ways they directly and indirectly affect their lives now and in the future. It is mildly apparent that all of my students realize the importance of recycling. Although it is very common for people to recycle today, it seems we are still creating an exorbitant amount of waste. While it seems evident that there is an increased awareness in caring for the Earth, it does not change the facts that there are millions of pounds of waste being thrown away every day. The students always look for the recycle bins to justify asking for another piece of paper instead of using an eraser, but they seldom change the way they handle materials. When I recently asked a class of 12 students how many of them actively recycle at home, fewer than half raised their hands. In fact, many of them did not even know how to recycle their waste.
The City of New Haven publishes a guide to recycling in the city. This document can be downloaded at http://cityofnewhaven.com/PublicWorks/pdfs/Recycling_Program.pdf in both English and Spanish. I will have copies for the students and will review all of the items on the list and we will discuss what they can recycle at home and at school. We can also come up with ideas on how to recycle things in our homes without putting them in the recycling bin, like using a tissue box to store all those plastic grocery bags. We will I hope come up with so many ideas, that students can generate a list for distribution in our school.
Where does it all go? Landfills are the final resting place for most of our personal waste. However, there are a variety of materials that should NOT be thrown away into the regular trash. Obviously, recyclable materials should be placed in the blue bins and HHW (Household Hazardous Waste) should be disposed of separately. There are dates to drop off these HHW products in New Haven and the students will be provided with a copy of them to bring home to their families. It is one of my goals to have my students understand these basic facts about recycling and landfills so they can become responsible, environmentally conscious young adults.
Change is a very difficult thing for all people, at any age. Average middle-school students are not usually interested in things that do not center on themselves, their peers, their idols or a variety of stimulating technological devices. They do not worry about throwing away batteries, or not recycling their glass bottles. My goal is to inspire my students to think about reducing, reusing and recycling all the time. This is not only a unit on promoting recycling, it is a unit on reducing what we use so we do not have to recycle as much, and reusing the things we have to lessen our waste. Students this age do not always realize the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling. Small steps that they take now will make a difference in the future.
