Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

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Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
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Lets enter a contest!

• www.youtube.com

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We need to learn a little first

• Reduce To minimize the amount of energy and
  waste.
• Reuse To repurpose materials.
• Recycle the process to convert (waste) into
  reusable material.

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The landfill write your reactions to this
picture, how does it make you feel?
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Watch this

• http//videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/30218-re
  ally-big-things-americas-landfills-video.htm

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Lets learn about trash

• Put the following in order from the shortest
  decomposition to longest.
• Aluminum can, banana, cigarette butt, cotton rag,
  glass bottle, leather boot, paper bag, plastic 6
  pack rings, plastic jug, rubber sole of boot,
  Styrofoam cup, tin can, wool sock

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Take a look at this

• Banana 3-4 weeks
• Paper bag 1 month
• Cotton rag 5 months
• Wool Sock 1 year
• Cigarette butt 2-5 years
• Leather boot 40-50 years
• Rubber sole 50-80 years
• Tin can 80-100 years
• Aluminum can 200-500 years
• Plastic 6 pack rings 450 years
• Plastic jug 1 million years
• Styrofoam cup- unknown? Forever?
• Glass bottle unknown? Forever?

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Garbage lasts

• William Rathje is a garbologist. He is the
  founder and Director of the Garbage Project,
  which conducts archaeological studies of modern
  trash. This University of Arizona professor and
  his students have been collecting data about
  solid waste since 1973. Rathje and his team found
  newspapers from the late 1970s that were still
  readable. Rathjes research also shows that for
  some kinds of organic garbage biodegradation (the
  rotting process) works for a while and then slows
  down or stops. For other kinds, it never starts
  to break down at all. Rathje and his team of
  garbologists plan to conduct more digs to find
  out why paper and other organic waste degrade
  slowly in landfills. Its not a pleasant task,
  Rathje says, but someone has to do it.

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How does waste decompose?

• Organic substances biodegrade when they are
  broken down by other living organisms (such as
  enzymes and microbes) into their constituent
  parts, and in turn recycled by nature as the
  building blocks for new life. The process can
  occur aerobically (with the aid of oxygen) or
  anaerobically (without oxygen). Substances break
  down much faster under aerobic conditions, as
  oxygen helps break the molecules apart.

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How does it work (cont.)

• Lets say you took a piece of wood and burned it.
  What you would be left with is a little pile of
  ash. The same is true if you burned a piece of
  paper, a bale of hay, a big handful of cotton,
  etc. Its even true if you cremate a human body.
  The ash is nothing but the minerals that cannot
  be consumed by fire things like calcium and
  potassium.
• When something decomposes, it is broken down not
  by fire, but by microorganisms and insects. If
  you leave a piece of wood on the forest floor,
  termites, carpenter ants, beetles and bacteria
  will dismantle the piece of wood little by
  little. They use the same carbon and hydrogen
  bonds that fuel the fire to fuel their bodies.
  They incorporate the minerals into their own
  bodies. And eventually nothing is left. When an
  animal dies, a host of worms, maggots, beetles,
  ants and bacteria use the rotting body as food,
  until nothing but the bones are left. And the
  bones eventually turn to calcium dust and are
  re-absorbed by other plants and animals.

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Will landfills fill up?

• In just 16 years, from 1979 to 1995, the number
  of landfills dropped by 84, while the amount of
  trash generated increased by 80.
• Only two human-made structures on Earth are large
  enough to be seen from outer space the Great
  Wall of China and the Fresh Kills landfill,
  located on the western shore of Staten Island!
• Every year we fill enough garbage trucks to form
  a line that would stretch from the earth, halfway
  to the moon.
• Every hour, Americans throw away 2.5 million
  plastic bottles.

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What can we do?

• Think of what you have put in the trash can
  today could it have been recycled instead or
  composted? Biodegradable goods take much longer
  (up to 30 years for a newspaper) to decompose
  when buried in landfills, as the necessary amount
  of oxygen is lacking.

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Recycle

• A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the
  grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60
  days.
• If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save
  about 250,000,000 trees each year!
• Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown
  into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea
  creatures every year!
• The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle
  can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours or a
  compact fluorescent bulb for 20 hours. It also
  causes 20 less air pollution and 50 less water
  pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw
  materials.

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Lansing offers free recycling!
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What is the impact?

• A record 2700 tons of recycling was collected in
  2011.  This represents an over 40 increase since
  the City switched to the single stream collection
  method in mid 2010.  Heres a breakdown of the
  environmental benefits
• 17,804,746 gallons of water saved
• 13, 532, 796 kWh of energy saved
• 7828 metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent GHG
  emissions saved
• 40,935 trees saved
• 304,817 pounds of natural resources, such as
  sand, soda ash and limestone saved
• 435,965 tons of bauxite and iron ore saved
• 1,102,711 gallons of gasoline saved

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Watch this

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?featureplayer_embedd
  edvl19RfqR1FIc

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Now its your turn

• Think of ways we can reduce, reuse, or recycle at
  school.
• Make a poster to advertise the importance or
  recycling.