Ashley R. Singer
The United States is a throw away society. The average person creates about one ton of trash every year. Typical American residential trash is made of: 40 percent paper, 18 percent yard waste, 9 percent plastics, 8 percent metals, 7 percent glass, and 18 percent food and other waste (Holtzclaw, p121). There are three ways to deal with the waste: bury it, burn it or recycle it.
When trash is buried in a landfill it can last for a significantly longer time than if it were open to the elements. It is possible to find paper and other biodegradable waste decades old. If these things were left on a sidewalk or in a compost heap they would turn into soil or simply waste away. If trash is incinerated, the energy from the burning can be transformed into electricity. The downfall is that burning garbage is very expensive and the smoke pollutes the air. Things like plastic, metal and glass can be recycled. This is helpful because these materials are not biodegradable.
In a society where everyone wants the newest, biggest, and most expensive everything, it is no wonder there is so much garbage and so many of the resources are being used to make new things all the time. The average household in Europe or North America has so many devices and such a variety of food and clothing that to produce the same lifestyle in Roman times would have required six-thousand slaves, cooks, maids, minstrels, ice-house keepers, woodcutters, nubile women with fans, and many more. The amount of energy needed to make one soda can could power a television for three hours. The entire world throws away 250 billion cans a year (Pearce).
Making plastic bottles accounts for about 4 percent of the United States energy use. Enough energy is conserved by recycling a plastic bottle to light a 60-watt bulb for 6 hours. By using recycled materials to make new plastic products two-thirds less energy is used (earth911.com).
Glass is made up of sand, limestone, and soda ash and is completely recyclable. It can be recycled over and over again without a compromise to quality. Large amounts of fossil fuels are used to heat furnaces that melt glass in the production of glass containers. In 2002, the glass industry used roughly 8611,000,000 kWh of energy. Carbon dioxide emissions totaled 1.8 million tons from the fossil fuels burnt in the factories. A furnace requires 4 GJ of energy for each ton of glass melted. By using recycled glass, called cullet, about 40 percent less energy is used, than when glass is made from raw materials. Many glass containers are made of 70 percent recycled glass. If a glass bottle is not recycled, it can take about one million years to breakdown to its source material (earth911.com; wasteonline.org).
It is important for students to understand the amount of waste they are creating by not reusing or recycling packaging. By the end of the unit, students should feel responsible for recycling. The motivation for recycling is not only in the form of wanting to help but also is in the form of monetary gain. Students can easily be rewarded by recycling not only their own trash, but also by collecting recyclables from family members, schools and neighborhoods and redeeming them for the deposit. The most environmentally friendly thing one can do is to not use throw away packaging at all. Reusable packaging and water bottles can significantly reduce the amount of waste created by students on a daily basis.
