Pre-Lab Questions
1. How much solid waste is produced in the US per day? Per year?
The United States produces 600,000 tons of waste per day and 210 million tons of waste per year.
2. How much is that per capita/per day? Per year?
This is four pounds per person per day, and one thousand 1460 pounds per year.
3. Where does this waste go?
The trash is handled in many different ways. Twenty-seven percent of the waste is recycled, 57 percent is buried in landfills, and 16 percent is burned.
4. What different things can be done with waste?
The waste can be recycled, burned, or buried. The waste also emits methane which can be harvested as a potential energy resource.
5. What do you predict the largest amount of waste you and your family produces is?
The largest amount of waste is from uneaten food products and food wrappers.
The United States produces 600,000 tons of waste per day and 210 million tons of waste per year.
2. How much is that per capita/per day? Per year?
This is four pounds per person per day, and one thousand 1460 pounds per year.
3. Where does this waste go?
The trash is handled in many different ways. Twenty-seven percent of the waste is recycled, 57 percent is buried in landfills, and 16 percent is burned.
4. What different things can be done with waste?
The waste can be recycled, burned, or buried. The waste also emits methane which can be harvested as a potential energy resource.
5. What do you predict the largest amount of waste you and your family produces is?
The largest amount of waste is from uneaten food products and food wrappers.
Hypothesis
If we record the trash we use for 3 days, than the item we use most will be paper because that is the largest percentage of trash that the United States produces.
Variables
Independent Variable: The trash collected over the weekend.
Dependent Variable: The composition and ability to be recycled of the trash
Controlled Variable: The time period of collecting trash
Control: none
Experimental Variable: The trash being collected over the weekend
Dependent Variable: The composition and ability to be recycled of the trash
Controlled Variable: The time period of collecting trash
Control: none
Experimental Variable: The trash being collected over the weekend
Problem
What type of trash is collected for one person over a 3 day period? Is this trash recyclable?
Materials
- trash
- sheet to record the types of trash you throw away
- sheet to record the types of trash you throw away
Procedure
1. Over the course of 3 days, be aware of the trash that you are throwing away
2. Record the types of trash you are throwing away on your sheet
2. Record the types of trash you are throwing away on your sheet
Observations
1. I produced the most food wrapper trash during a weekday
2. I threw away the most paper on a weekday
3. I produced less trash overall on the weekend
4. I only used cans, bottles, and foil during a weekend day
5. I didn't use any Mixed Metals
2. I threw away the most paper on a weekday
3. I produced less trash overall on the weekend
4. I only used cans, bottles, and foil during a weekend day
5. I didn't use any Mixed Metals
Questions
1. What is done to control the amount of pollution created from a landfill?
Pollution is controlled through many different ways. A municipal solid waste landfill uses a synthetic liner to isolate the trash from the environment. Many landfills have rainwater control systems as well so the runoff doesn’t take the trash from the landfill and pollute the environment. Much of the trash is buried, burned, or recycled to limit the amount of trash in the landfill.
2. Many people think landfills should not be expensive since they are a hole in the ground. Explain why a landfill such as above can cost in the millions of dollars to build and keep up.
Landfills can be very expensive as trash isn’t just being thrown into a giant hole, it is recycled, harvested for energy, and requires investments to control the pollution. Much of the trash is recycled which requires large amount of money to sort and ship it to recycling facilities. Many energy collecting resources such as methane collectors are established around landfills to harvest the methane excreted from the landfilled and convert it into usable energy. It also takes investments such as storm water collectors to ensure the landfill doesn’t permanently damage the environment.
3. How did the amount of waste you and your family each create compare with what you expected?
The amount of waste was actually much more than I expected. It’s very easy to overlook how much trash is produced in a day. Almost every single thing that I ate created some sort of food wrapper or food preparation trash, which accumulated very quickly with my 3+ meals a day.
4. What are some reasons the average could be different than your (or family’s) amount for one day?
The average amount of trashed produced per family could be different than my family's trash amount produced in one day because my family eats a lot and because my family is always busy. Because we eat so much and because I like to snack on things throughout the day, we create a lot of waste just in food wrappers. This could make us different because the average family does not eat as much as my family does. Also, my family is more busy than the average family. This business makes us always on the run and the food that is most convenient when you're on the run is neat little packaged food; therefore, this could also contribute to the production of trash.
5. Calculate how much trash you accumulate in one month’s time
36 items in 3 days
36 (items) / 3(days) = 12 items/day
about 30 days in a month
12 (items/day) X 30 (days in a month) =
360 items of trash in one month's time is produced by one student
6. There are approximately 1,300 students at our school. How much trash do you estimate would be produced by all the students in our school over the course of 10 months (one school year)?
1 student in one month's time produces 360 items of trash
360 (items/student/month) X 10 (months in a school year) =
3,600 items produced by one student in 10 months
3,600 (items/student/10months) X 1,300 (students) =
4,680,000 items of trash in one school year (10 months) is produced by 1,300 students
7. Now, calculate how much trash you would produce if all the recyclable, reusable, and compostable material was not in your trash bag? How much trash would that save over the course of one year?
I would save about 11 items a day. Over the course of one year, I would save 4,015 items.
8. How much could the school save through the course of one school year if all the recyclable, reusable, and compostable material was not thrown in the landfill?
If I, alone, can save 4,015 items a year by recycling, reusing, and composting and if our school has 1,300 students, then the students could all save 5,219,500 items a year by doing the same.
Pollution is controlled through many different ways. A municipal solid waste landfill uses a synthetic liner to isolate the trash from the environment. Many landfills have rainwater control systems as well so the runoff doesn’t take the trash from the landfill and pollute the environment. Much of the trash is buried, burned, or recycled to limit the amount of trash in the landfill.
2. Many people think landfills should not be expensive since they are a hole in the ground. Explain why a landfill such as above can cost in the millions of dollars to build and keep up.
Landfills can be very expensive as trash isn’t just being thrown into a giant hole, it is recycled, harvested for energy, and requires investments to control the pollution. Much of the trash is recycled which requires large amount of money to sort and ship it to recycling facilities. Many energy collecting resources such as methane collectors are established around landfills to harvest the methane excreted from the landfilled and convert it into usable energy. It also takes investments such as storm water collectors to ensure the landfill doesn’t permanently damage the environment.
3. How did the amount of waste you and your family each create compare with what you expected?
The amount of waste was actually much more than I expected. It’s very easy to overlook how much trash is produced in a day. Almost every single thing that I ate created some sort of food wrapper or food preparation trash, which accumulated very quickly with my 3+ meals a day.
4. What are some reasons the average could be different than your (or family’s) amount for one day?
The average amount of trashed produced per family could be different than my family's trash amount produced in one day because my family eats a lot and because my family is always busy. Because we eat so much and because I like to snack on things throughout the day, we create a lot of waste just in food wrappers. This could make us different because the average family does not eat as much as my family does. Also, my family is more busy than the average family. This business makes us always on the run and the food that is most convenient when you're on the run is neat little packaged food; therefore, this could also contribute to the production of trash.
5. Calculate how much trash you accumulate in one month’s time
36 items in 3 days
36 (items) / 3(days) = 12 items/day
about 30 days in a month
12 (items/day) X 30 (days in a month) =
360 items of trash in one month's time is produced by one student
6. There are approximately 1,300 students at our school. How much trash do you estimate would be produced by all the students in our school over the course of 10 months (one school year)?
1 student in one month's time produces 360 items of trash
360 (items/student/month) X 10 (months in a school year) =
3,600 items produced by one student in 10 months
3,600 (items/student/10months) X 1,300 (students) =
4,680,000 items of trash in one school year (10 months) is produced by 1,300 students
7. Now, calculate how much trash you would produce if all the recyclable, reusable, and compostable material was not in your trash bag? How much trash would that save over the course of one year?
I would save about 11 items a day. Over the course of one year, I would save 4,015 items.
8. How much could the school save through the course of one school year if all the recyclable, reusable, and compostable material was not thrown in the landfill?
If I, alone, can save 4,015 items a year by recycling, reusing, and composting and if our school has 1,300 students, then the students could all save 5,219,500 items a year by doing the same.
Conclusion
The hypothesis was partly correct.. The trash did turn out to be primarily recyclable items. It primarily consisted of recyclable materials (paper, plastics). The hypothesis was partially incorrect, however, because I thought that paper would be the number one largest thing thrown away (considering that is the largest amount of waste the United States produces all together), but instead, paper and plastic both equaled 16 items thrown away of each at the end of the three days.
There were some sources of error in this experiment. The trash collected in the 3 days can not be a completely correct representation of the trash I make in a year because my disposal of items varies from day to day. Food waste, which was not counted in the experiment, is my number one source of waste, therefore, this could have made my waste disposal look less than it really is. Another source of error was simply forgetfulness during this experiment. A lot of times, I would forget that I was in the midst of a waste diary experiment and I would forget to record the trash I threw away.
This experiment showed us how much waste is really produced in our world. This wastefulness can especially be seen by looking at Americans. If my experiment holds true, 4,290 items is produced by a single person in one year, which if we consider the millions of Americans that live on earth, we conclude with a huge amount of trash. Surprisingly, the majority of these food items in the experiment were recyclable. Therefore, if each American made an effort to recycle all of their recyclable material, then we would be decreasing the amount of trash produced by billions of pounds a year. By doing this, we would be able to make America much more environmentally friendly by reducing the amount of potentially hazardous landfills on out earth. Besides landfills, trash can also be incinerated before it is put into a hole in our earth. This burning of materials causes greenhouse gases to be put into our atmosphere and further the cycle of the greenhouse effect. Overall, if we recycle, we can not only reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and hazardous materials, but also save our nation money by being sustainable in our resources use.
There were some sources of error in this experiment. The trash collected in the 3 days can not be a completely correct representation of the trash I make in a year because my disposal of items varies from day to day. Food waste, which was not counted in the experiment, is my number one source of waste, therefore, this could have made my waste disposal look less than it really is. Another source of error was simply forgetfulness during this experiment. A lot of times, I would forget that I was in the midst of a waste diary experiment and I would forget to record the trash I threw away.
This experiment showed us how much waste is really produced in our world. This wastefulness can especially be seen by looking at Americans. If my experiment holds true, 4,290 items is produced by a single person in one year, which if we consider the millions of Americans that live on earth, we conclude with a huge amount of trash. Surprisingly, the majority of these food items in the experiment were recyclable. Therefore, if each American made an effort to recycle all of their recyclable material, then we would be decreasing the amount of trash produced by billions of pounds a year. By doing this, we would be able to make America much more environmentally friendly by reducing the amount of potentially hazardous landfills on out earth. Besides landfills, trash can also be incinerated before it is put into a hole in our earth. This burning of materials causes greenhouse gases to be put into our atmosphere and further the cycle of the greenhouse effect. Overall, if we recycle, we can not only reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and hazardous materials, but also save our nation money by being sustainable in our resources use.
Works Cited
"Waste and Recycling Facts." Clean Air Council. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 April. 2013.