Hands-On Garbage

The Students' Perspective
 

On October 26, 2006 students came to school with something somewhat personal, their trash. As they entered the building, each student’s trash was labeled by what part of town the trash came from, such as inner-city Columbus or Bexley. During the school day each science class went to the school commons area, where they would sort, weigh, and recycle garbage.


Trash brought in from home by students, teachers and staff.

The students were separated into groups of four or five.  We were given trash bags to look through. Most of the trash bags contained plastic, paper, and food. The trash was [sorted and] weighed by certain columns [i.e., by category].

During the process we found out that thrown away food could be “recycled.” The food could be put in a bin and eaten by worms. As the worms would eat the food they would leave behind soil that could be used to plant more food.

The paper and plastic could be recycled, which we all know. The paper could be recycled about 8-9 times. Plastic could be recycled, but we are unsure of how many times. We need to recycle to slow the production of landfills. Many recyclables take up too much space. Paper takes up nearly 35% of a landfill and plastic takes up about 12%.


Food waste from one lunch period at Metro.

We had a few unexpected discoveries. We found a lot of food waste.  We also had to dig through our teachers’ trash as well. We had found unwrapped food products in several people’s trash. Some of those things could still be used or eaten. We even found a coffee warmer that still worked in a trash bag. It was unexpected to find out how many things people throw away that can still be used. We did not know how many items people just throw away.

Sorting and recording household waste.
 

We have reason to believe that it was planned to help us see that people throw away a lot of recyclable and salvageable things. We dealt with things like plastic bottles and tons of paper that could easily have been recycled. Also there was food that was not even touched and granola bars that were still in their wrappers. This was important because it helped us realize that it actually happens in real life instead of just hearing about it. This is very wasteful because the things that can be reused and recycled are taking up much needed space in landfills.

Discussing findings with Dr. Sheli Smith.

We enjoyed doing something new instead of just sitting in a classroom and taking notes and talking about important things. We had the chance to work in groups and to work together. We liked having the opportunity but we think it was still disgusting even with the gloves and aprons. We found nasty things like diapers and other stuff. We liked the experience, but we would not want to do it again.

See more pictures of this activity here.