A good project for middle school students.
HOW ABOUT RECYCLING, Landfill space in America is running out, many cities in our great country are shipping there waste out by rail, or barge to other States to be buried. Why not have a one month project to see how much of what we throw in the garbage without a thought could be recycled. One example to point out is the fact that if all Americans just recycled there aluminum cans we would save 16 million barrels of oil in the energy cost off making new aluminum for cans. Aluminum can be recycled endlessly.
Students could separate all of there house hold garbage into their proper categories.
1. Aluminum cans, and foil, make sure to rinse them out to prevent ants, and flies.
2. Paper products, newspapers and magazines in one group. Cardboard and other boxes in another group.
3. Glass, which should be separated into clear, and colored glass, again all of which should be rinsed out. No ants or flies.
4. Plastics, which are some of the worst because of the time which is required for decomposition. They should be separated into soft plastics, bags and plastic wraps. Then hard plastics such as juice and milk jugs pop bottles, again which should be rinsed out.
5. Now most of what you should have left, should be old food, coffee grounds and such. Most of which could be composted. Which if the Students have a yard with a flower bed they would not need chemical fertilizers.
6. Most cities have an center which will buy at least the aluminum cans, if not the paper and plastic. A class of 30 should be able to have enough money from the sale of their cans alone to have a small cake and ice cream party at the end of the project.
7. And most important if we as a People do not start to do these relatively simple things our Beautiful World will soon be unfit for life as we know it. We must make a start, and what a better way than to educate our young in the great sense in recycling.
8. As your class is doing this project you could spend some class time on how these products are made. Such as trees that must be cut down to make our paper products, and how many trees are left to produce our oxygen that we all need to breath for each few tons of recycled paper. The making of new aluminum from bauxite is rather interesting but it requires a huge amount of electric power. The cost of melting the recycled cans is a vastly cheaper process. How glass is made is another fascinating process. All of this should prove to be fun as well as educational to any teachers class.
