Waste Diary Lab
Pre Lab
1. How much waste is produced in the U.S. per day? Per year?
Per day America produces 1.35 billion pounds of garbage and per year 251 million tons.
2. How much is that per capita/per day? Year?
4.5 pounds (2.04 kilograms) of solid waste per person/per day. A total of 1600 pounds per year.
3. Where does this waste go?
Buried underground, dumped into a landfill.
4. What different things can be done with waste?
It can be recycled, or composted depending on what kind of waste it is. Also, humans can conserve and maintain the amounts of waste we produce each year so we can limit them to a much smaller amount than it is currently.
5. What do you predict the largest amount of waste produced by your family is?
Probably either paper or food.
Per day America produces 1.35 billion pounds of garbage and per year 251 million tons.
2. How much is that per capita/per day? Year?
4.5 pounds (2.04 kilograms) of solid waste per person/per day. A total of 1600 pounds per year.
3. Where does this waste go?
Buried underground, dumped into a landfill.
4. What different things can be done with waste?
It can be recycled, or composted depending on what kind of waste it is. Also, humans can conserve and maintain the amounts of waste we produce each year so we can limit them to a much smaller amount than it is currently.
5. What do you predict the largest amount of waste produced by your family is?
Probably either paper or food.
Problem
How much waste does an individual produce in a given amount of time?
Hypothesis
If the individual is given two weekdays and one weekend day they will produce on average 50 items of trash.
Procedure
1. Record every single piece of trash, except for food and hygiene products, that you throw away for 2 weekdays and one weekend day.
Observations
Most of my waste came from both the plastic and paper categories. In my household, we rarely recycle so that could be one of the reasons why those two categories consisted of so many items. Based on my day to day results it was clear that most of the items thrown out on Thursday and Friday were paper items. This could be due to the fact that I had school that day and was constantly using paper. There were only four aluminum items thrown out in the course of those three days and they were all soda cans. There were no mixed metal or glass items.
Tables and Graphs
Analysis and Conclusion
1. What is done to control the amount of pollution created from a landfill?
They line the landfill with impermeable soils such as clay as well as a plastic tarp like material to prevent infiltration. As well as, they harvest the harmful gasses such as methane that are produced from the decomposing matter.
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 millions of dollars to build and keep up.
The first major expenditure is creating the enormous hole in the ground and then second is preparing it with the appropriate soils and tarps to prevent ground water pollution. All of that costs millions of dollars just to set up and prepare.
3. How did the amount of waste you and your family each create compare with what you expected?
I only recorded the waste I create and not the waste my family creates as well. The amount collected was a little more than what I had expected, however, the difference was only by 7 items.
4. What are some reasons the average could be different then your (or family's) amount for one day?
The main reason why me or my family might have more waste than the average is because we barely ever use our recycling bins so all the waste that could be recycled goes into the trash. Another reason is because we have a tendency to throw away things that are still good and can be used to buy new and better items.
5. Calculate how much trash you accumulate in one month's time:
In a month that has 31 days I would accumulate 589 items of trash.
6. There are approximately 1,800 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).
If all the students in our school had the same rate of accumulating trash as me then over the course of 10 months we would produce 10,602,000 items of trash.
They line the landfill with impermeable soils such as clay as well as a plastic tarp like material to prevent infiltration. As well as, they harvest the harmful gasses such as methane that are produced from the decomposing matter.
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 millions of dollars to build and keep up.
The first major expenditure is creating the enormous hole in the ground and then second is preparing it with the appropriate soils and tarps to prevent ground water pollution. All of that costs millions of dollars just to set up and prepare.
3. How did the amount of waste you and your family each create compare with what you expected?
I only recorded the waste I create and not the waste my family creates as well. The amount collected was a little more than what I had expected, however, the difference was only by 7 items.
4. What are some reasons the average could be different then your (or family's) amount for one day?
The main reason why me or my family might have more waste than the average is because we barely ever use our recycling bins so all the waste that could be recycled goes into the trash. Another reason is because we have a tendency to throw away things that are still good and can be used to buy new and better items.
5. Calculate how much trash you accumulate in one month's time:
In a month that has 31 days I would accumulate 589 items of trash.
6. There are approximately 1,800 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).
If all the students in our school had the same rate of accumulating trash as me then over the course of 10 months we would produce 10,602,000 items of trash.
General Analysis and Conclusion
Summary: The amount of my personal waste differs from other families in America because my family does not recycle so we have a lot more recyclable waste accumulated than most other families. However, because it's just me and my mom we do not produce as much trash as a regular family with more members would. We also used to throw away things such as batteries and paints into the trash to get sent to the landfill without properly disposing of them, but after taking this class I now know that properly disposing of those types of wastes would be a lot better for the environment. Also after thinking about my waste I have thought more about reusable alternatives. I used to always carry disposable water bottles for refreshment throughout the day but since then I have adapted to a reusable waterbottle that fufills the same purpose but doesn't use as much materials.
Hypothesis Evaluation: After recording my results it turned out that I produced 57 items of trash in three days. The hypothesis turned out to be incorrect because my result was 7 items greater than the one predicted.
Accuracy of the Results: For the most part the results were pretty accurate except for the couple of times that I forgot to record during school.
Application: This lab taught me that an average person in America produces 4.5 pounds of waste per day which makes a total of 1600 pounds of waste per year. Also, I learned that plastic, paper, and food are the most common waste items found in a landfill which was surprising to me since both plastic and paper can be recycled and food can be composted.
Real Life Example: According to this article, turning plastic into oil would eliminate waste. This would be very beneficial, both to the environment and to people, because a big percentage of municipal solid waste (MSW) consists of plastic that could easily be recycled and turned into something else, especially something like oil which our society has become dependent on. Only 7% of plastic gets recycled, meaning 93% of plastic gets thrown out and dumped into a landfill. A company JBI Inc. figured out a way to make oil out of plastic waste. This oil is believed to be of less quality even though the CEO of the company swears that their machines produce good quality oil for cheaper. If the oil produced from plastic waste is good enough to be used and is cheaper than the one transported from the middle east and some other countries then we could be saving a lot of money while also preventing plastic pollution in the oceans and landfills. Based on the results of this lab, plastic was the second highest category on my list, therefore, just based on my results I can infer that there is a problem with a lot of plastic not being recycled and just simply thrown away so I believe turning it into oil is a good idea.
Miller, Sarka-Jonae. "Turning plastic into oil would eliminate plastic waste and stick it to greedy oil companies." Natural News. Natural News Network, 9 May 2012. Web. 27 May 2013. <http://www.naturalnews.com/035807_plastic_oil_energy.html>.
Hypothesis Evaluation: After recording my results it turned out that I produced 57 items of trash in three days. The hypothesis turned out to be incorrect because my result was 7 items greater than the one predicted.
Accuracy of the Results: For the most part the results were pretty accurate except for the couple of times that I forgot to record during school.
Application: This lab taught me that an average person in America produces 4.5 pounds of waste per day which makes a total of 1600 pounds of waste per year. Also, I learned that plastic, paper, and food are the most common waste items found in a landfill which was surprising to me since both plastic and paper can be recycled and food can be composted.
Real Life Example: According to this article, turning plastic into oil would eliminate waste. This would be very beneficial, both to the environment and to people, because a big percentage of municipal solid waste (MSW) consists of plastic that could easily be recycled and turned into something else, especially something like oil which our society has become dependent on. Only 7% of plastic gets recycled, meaning 93% of plastic gets thrown out and dumped into a landfill. A company JBI Inc. figured out a way to make oil out of plastic waste. This oil is believed to be of less quality even though the CEO of the company swears that their machines produce good quality oil for cheaper. If the oil produced from plastic waste is good enough to be used and is cheaper than the one transported from the middle east and some other countries then we could be saving a lot of money while also preventing plastic pollution in the oceans and landfills. Based on the results of this lab, plastic was the second highest category on my list, therefore, just based on my results I can infer that there is a problem with a lot of plastic not being recycled and just simply thrown away so I believe turning it into oil is a good idea.
Miller, Sarka-Jonae. "Turning plastic into oil would eliminate plastic waste and stick it to greedy oil companies." Natural News. Natural News Network, 9 May 2012. Web. 27 May 2013. <http://www.naturalnews.com/035807_plastic_oil_energy.html>.