Problem
On average, how much waste do you generate in 24 hours and how can it help you predict how much you generate in one month.
Hypothesis
I will generate approximately 110 grams of trash each day, making roughly 3,300 grams of trash generated in one month.
Procedure
Carry a trash bag around with you for 24 hours collecting all your waste, except:
· Food products
· Feminine hygiene products, bandages or anything else that would have bodily fluids or blood
· Food products
· Feminine hygiene products, bandages or anything else that would have bodily fluids or blood
Data Table
Questions
1. What is done to control the amount of pollution created from a landfill?
Sanitary landfills are one way to control pollution from land fills. The trash inside landfills can infiltrate into ground water or end up disrupting nearby ecosystems. Sanitary landfills are lined with clay to isolate the trash from the environment. Landfill pollution can also be controlled with the implementation of municipal solid waste landfills which also isolates trash but with a plastic liner. Storm water drainage is also used to prevent storm water from entering 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 are expensive to maintain, especially because they have to be lined with a lot of material and other precautionary measures must be taken to make them safe. It is also costly to operate all of the vehicles that contribute to the functioning of a landfill including trucks for transportation and the large machinery that excavate the earth. There are many jobs created for maintaining landfills and many resources used to compose the trash heaps, including all of the piping in the drainage system.
3. How did the amount of waste you and your family each create compare with what you expected?
I didn't expect to generate much trash because I normally reuse bottles and I hardly throw away paper. I was not surprised that I generated 125 grams of trash, in fact, I expected to generate even less.
4.What are some reasons the average could be different than your (or family’s) amount for one day?
Nobody has the exact same routine everyday, so on occasion there will be more or less trash generated on one day than another. Sometimes I am not at my house for most of the day and I do not have any trash to throw away. I also might reuse water bottles during the summer, making the temperature and time of year a factor for how much trash I generate. Factors change each day so the trash I generate does not always coincide with the average.
5. Calculate how much trash you accumulate in one month’s time: 3,300 g
125 g x 30 days = 3300 g
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)? 42,900,000 g
3300 g/month x 10 months = 33000 g/10 months x 1300 students = 42,900,000
7. What was the total weight of your recyclable material?
125 grams
8. What was the total weight of your reusable material?
118 grams
9. What was the total weight of your compostable material?
115 grams
10. 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 not generate any trash because all of my trash was either recyclable, reusable, or compostable. Over the course of a year, I would save 39,600 grams of trash.
11. 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?
Since all of the trash is recyclable, reusable, and compostable, the school would save 42,900,000 grams of trash over a school year which is approximately 10 months.
Sanitary landfills are one way to control pollution from land fills. The trash inside landfills can infiltrate into ground water or end up disrupting nearby ecosystems. Sanitary landfills are lined with clay to isolate the trash from the environment. Landfill pollution can also be controlled with the implementation of municipal solid waste landfills which also isolates trash but with a plastic liner. Storm water drainage is also used to prevent storm water from entering 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 are expensive to maintain, especially because they have to be lined with a lot of material and other precautionary measures must be taken to make them safe. It is also costly to operate all of the vehicles that contribute to the functioning of a landfill including trucks for transportation and the large machinery that excavate the earth. There are many jobs created for maintaining landfills and many resources used to compose the trash heaps, including all of the piping in the drainage system.
3. How did the amount of waste you and your family each create compare with what you expected?
I didn't expect to generate much trash because I normally reuse bottles and I hardly throw away paper. I was not surprised that I generated 125 grams of trash, in fact, I expected to generate even less.
4.What are some reasons the average could be different than your (or family’s) amount for one day?
Nobody has the exact same routine everyday, so on occasion there will be more or less trash generated on one day than another. Sometimes I am not at my house for most of the day and I do not have any trash to throw away. I also might reuse water bottles during the summer, making the temperature and time of year a factor for how much trash I generate. Factors change each day so the trash I generate does not always coincide with the average.
5. Calculate how much trash you accumulate in one month’s time: 3,300 g
125 g x 30 days = 3300 g
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)? 42,900,000 g
3300 g/month x 10 months = 33000 g/10 months x 1300 students = 42,900,000
7. What was the total weight of your recyclable material?
125 grams
8. What was the total weight of your reusable material?
118 grams
9. What was the total weight of your compostable material?
115 grams
10. 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 not generate any trash because all of my trash was either recyclable, reusable, or compostable. Over the course of a year, I would save 39,600 grams of trash.
11. 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?
Since all of the trash is recyclable, reusable, and compostable, the school would save 42,900,000 grams of trash over a school year which is approximately 10 months.
General Analysis & Conclusions
Evaluation of Hypothesis: My hypothesis that I would generate 110 grams of trash was incorrect because I actually generated 15 grams more than that. Although my hypothesis was incorrect, the margin of difference was about the weight of a few pieces of plastic wrapping considering that the four pieces of plastic I collected equates to 10 grams of trash.
Accuracy of Results: My results may have been slightly affected by me purposefully trying to use more trash. I don't normally generate much trash during the day so the trash that I did collect was collected for the sake of the experiment and may differ from the average amount of trash generated per person daily. Also, the cardboard boxes registered slightly different weights before and after I opened up the tops and flattened the boxes out. Another source of error could be the trash I had to throw away because of the food remnants that were stuck to the packaging.
Application: Landfills are becoming more and more crowded as the average amount of trash generated per person increases. There is a solution to the overcrowding of landfills, and many are already utilizing this solution and contributing to a more efficient way of life. This solution is recycling and it has many benefits. Landfills take up a large portion of space worldwide, and ecosystems are destroyed when new landfills are erected. An increase in recycling would require less landfills, thus decreasing deforestation and excavation of valuable and arable land. Energy use can also be improved with recycling. By recycling trash instead of letting it end up in a landfill, there is less energy required to make new products. Making products from recycled materials uses less energy than making them from "virgin" materials. Recycling also improves the economy since landfills are government owned properties that don't generate profit. One of the largest benefits is reduction of greenhouse gases which are produced my landfills through methane release. Although recycling seems like an obvious approach to improving waste management, there are a lot more parts of the world that can better implement recycling for the benefit of themselves and the environment.
Citation: Walls-Thumma, Dawn. "Recycling Instead of Landfills | National Geographic." Green Living on National Geographic. National Geographic, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.
http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/recycling-instead-landfills-2216.html
Accuracy of Results: My results may have been slightly affected by me purposefully trying to use more trash. I don't normally generate much trash during the day so the trash that I did collect was collected for the sake of the experiment and may differ from the average amount of trash generated per person daily. Also, the cardboard boxes registered slightly different weights before and after I opened up the tops and flattened the boxes out. Another source of error could be the trash I had to throw away because of the food remnants that were stuck to the packaging.
Application: Landfills are becoming more and more crowded as the average amount of trash generated per person increases. There is a solution to the overcrowding of landfills, and many are already utilizing this solution and contributing to a more efficient way of life. This solution is recycling and it has many benefits. Landfills take up a large portion of space worldwide, and ecosystems are destroyed when new landfills are erected. An increase in recycling would require less landfills, thus decreasing deforestation and excavation of valuable and arable land. Energy use can also be improved with recycling. By recycling trash instead of letting it end up in a landfill, there is less energy required to make new products. Making products from recycled materials uses less energy than making them from "virgin" materials. Recycling also improves the economy since landfills are government owned properties that don't generate profit. One of the largest benefits is reduction of greenhouse gases which are produced my landfills through methane release. Although recycling seems like an obvious approach to improving waste management, there are a lot more parts of the world that can better implement recycling for the benefit of themselves and the environment.
Citation: Walls-Thumma, Dawn. "Recycling Instead of Landfills | National Geographic." Green Living on National Geographic. National Geographic, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.
http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/recycling-instead-landfills-2216.html