Do Now – EARTH DAY!
1. What percentage of
BeCl2 is chlorine?
2. Why do you think
people celebrate Earth
Day?
Agenda
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Bubble Gum Investigation
Earth Day!
Poster Work Time
Exit Ticket
Objectives
• SWBAT perform an investigation to calculate
the percent composition of bubble gum.
• SWBAT describe the effects of bubble gum,
cigarette butts, junk mail, and plastic bags on
the environment.
• SWBAT make an Earth Day Promise.
Percent Composition Formula
mass element x 100 = % element
mass compound
Percent Composition
Bubble Gum Investigation
Your task is to calculate the
percent composition of
bubble gum. We are
assuming that bubble gum is
composed of 2 things – gum
and sugar. You should be
able to calculate the percent
gum and percent sugar after
completing your
investigation.
Is Bubble Gum Biodegradeable?
• No! It is not! It is made in part from not only nonnutritive but also non-biodegradable substances
• Every commercial gum has a gum base
– Gum bases are the part that we chew and chew and
chew
– They are grouped in categories: elastomers (including
natural and synthetic rubbers), resins, plasticizers
(such as waxes, vegetable oils, and glycerides),
adjuvants (including calcium carbonate, talc, or other
charging agents), and antioxidants
– Like plastic, wax, or rubber
• Bottom line: Don't spit your gum out in the compost or
on the sidewalk, and don't stick it under the table; put it
in the trash. Contrary to persistent urban legends, you
can also swallow your gum. It'll eventually pass right on
through, undigested. Yum.
Butts and Gum
• March 2006: Cigarette butts and chewed
up wads of gum litter and muck up city
streets everywhere. Environmental news
website Grist.com reports on Butts &
Gum: Preventing Forest Fires, who have
developed portable ashtrays and gum
pouches for cigarette ends and
bubblegum blobs.
• Boodi eco-ashtray
Butts and Gum
• Throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales
people are being fined at least £50 for dropping
cigarette butts and chewing gum, and councils are
spending hundreds of millions of pounds on removing
such litter from our streets. Our Gum Pouch and Butt
Pouch provide effective, sustainable solutions for
reducing and eventually eradicating cigarette and
chewing gum litter.
• Butts & Gum anti-litter pouches provide affordable
means of cigarette and gum disposal while on the
move. They simply prevent litter from being dropped,
so the user will not face a litter fine and the
environment will avoid the damaging effects of
littered cigarette butts and chewing gum.
Happy Earth Day!
• Earth Day is celebrated on April 22nd each year
in 175 countries around the world
• Designed to inspire awareness and
appreciation for the earth's environment
Some Important
(and Perhaps Shocking) Statistics
Bubble Gum
Cigarette Butts
Junk mail
Plastic Bags
Bubble Gum
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Chewing gum is litter too!
Many different types of chemicals are used to try
and rid a surface of chewed chewing gum. The gum
and those chemicals are then rinsed off, travel
down the drains and run into the ocean
Chewing gum is not biodegradable and will stick to
its surface for many, many years until treated
Birds (especially young birds) have died by eating
chewing gum
Bubble Gum
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Annually, there is over 650,000 metric tons of chewing
gum produced (2005 statistic) every year – It is
predicted that in the next 5 years, over 1 million metric
tones of chewing gum will be produced
• There are over 374 trillion sticks of chewing gum made
every year
– Did you know that 374 trillions sticks of gum stacked
on top of each other is approximately 2,305,800
miles high?
• Next to cigarette butts chewing gum is the second
largest littering item in the world!
• The average person chews over 300 pieces of chewing
gum a year
Bubble Gum
Chewing gum increases in value after it is purchased.
Chewed chewing gum is more valuable after it is
chewed, than before when it is sold in a store. By
the time the gum is chewed and ends up on the
pavement, a piece of gum increases in value by up
to 15 times. A pack of gum (15 sticks to a pack)
would cost approximately $1.39 (each stick's net
worth is $0.09). Each stick would cost
approximately $1.50-$3.00 to clean up. You do the
math...that is approximately $25 per pack of gum
to clean up off the sidewalk, in front of your
business entrance, at a church, school, movie
theatre, airplane etc.
Bubble Gum
What You Can Do!
• Don’t throw gum on the ground or put
it under benches/desks (especially in
Ms. Stroh’s classroom)
• Go live in Singapore where they have
banned gum
Cigarette Butts
• Warning: According to ButtsOut, the world annually
discards about 4.3 trillion cigarette butts. By some
estimates, 30% of all cigarettes smoked end up as
litter, and although they are small themselves, they
can create over 500,000 tons of pollution per year.
• Traditional butts are made of “synthetic polymer
cellulose acetate” and never degrade, only breaking
apart after roughly 12 years. Yet within an hour of
contact with water, cigarette butts can begin leaching
chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into
the marine environment. And that's not counting for
the fact they also end up in in the intestines of “fish,
whales, birds and other marine animals”.
Cigarette Butts
What You Can Do!
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Don’t smoke
Never throw a cigarette butt on the ground
Use portable ashtrays
Don’t smoke
Junk Mail
• More than 100 million trees are
destroyed each year to produce junk mail
• The world’s temperate forests absorb 2 billion
tons of carbon annually – creating and
shipping junk mail produces more greenhouse
gas emissions than 9 million cars
• About 28 billion gallons of water are wasted to
produce and recycle junk each year
• You waste about 70 hours a year dealing with
junk mail
Junk Mail
What You Can Do!
• You can take your family’s names off junk mail
lists!
• Go to www.newdream.org/junkmail/form.php
or www.mailstopper.tonic.com/
Plastic Bags
• Introduced just over 25 years ago,
the ugly truth about our plastic
bag addiction is that society's
consumption rate is now
estimated at well over
500,000,000,000 (that's 500
billion) plastic bags annually, or
almost 1 million per minute
• Single-use bags made of highdensity polyethylene (HDPE) are
the main culprit. Once brought
into existence to tote your
purchases, they'll accumulate and
persist on our planet for up to
1,000 years.
Plastic Bags
• According to The Wall Street
Journal, the U.S. goes through
100 billion plastic shopping
bags annually. An estimated 12
million barrels of oil is required
to make that many plastic bags.
• The production of plastic bags
creates enough solid waste per
year to fill the Empire State
Building two and a half times.
• Plastic bags cause over 100,000
sea turtle and other marine
animal deaths every year when
animals mistake them for food.
Plastic Bags
60,000 plastic bags are being
used EVERY SECOND!
• Taiwan banned plastic bags
last year.
• The average family
accumulates 60 plastic bags
in only four trips to the
grocery store.
• Windblown plastic bags are
so prevalent in Africa that a
cottage industry has sprung
up harvesting bags and
using them to weave hats,
and even bags. According
to the BBC one group
harvests 30,000 per month.
Plastic Bags
What You Can Do!
• Buy or make plastic bag creations
• Use re-usable bags when you go to the
grocery store or mall
• If you forget your bag, use as few plastic bags
as possible!
• Recycle and/or reuse plastic bags when able
– Some stores have bins for used plastic bags!
Plastic Bag Creations
In Honor of
Mother Earth…
• Construct an Earth Day
“Promise Poster” to show
how you plan to nurture
yo momma the way she has
nurtured you your entire life!
• Pick at least one thing to showcase
• Use 8.5” x 11” paper
• Will be hung up around school to inspire your
fellow Hurricanes
Exit Ticket
1. What percentage of your bubble gum was
sugar?
2. What is your Earth Day Promise?