Think Earth 2014/15
Sixth & Seventh Grades
Topic: Solid Waste: Trash & Plastic Waste
Lesson Plan:
Learning Objectives
Students will:
1. Recognize
disposable items and
their environmental
impact.
2. Understand the
connection between
waste and our
natural resources;
3. Look at ways to
prevent and reduce
waste
Utah Core Objectives:
6th Grade: Science,
Standard V
7th grade: Biology,
Standard 1
Time: 40 minutes
Materials Needed:
1. Two Video clips
2. Stocked trash can
w/gloves
3. Photos
3. Plastic reuse
products
Handouts:
1. RU handout
This lesson plan is made possible by a
grant from The Hemingway Foundation
and was adapted from the Bag It! and
Project Learning Tree: Municipal Solid
Waste curricula.
1. Watch video (4 minutes) – The Plastic Bag Mockumentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw
2. Trash – give some vast #’s from Intl to domestic. Review the natural
resources used for our recyclables. Now urge the class to think about
trash: What is trash? Does it matter what you throw away? Where
does it go? How does it affect the environment? Explain landfills &
tipping fees. How do landfills affect our environment? (5 min)
3. Trash Can – Bring one in with commonly discarded materials
laden with plastics & packaging materials but the basics, too (stash it
in a corner like it’s real). Call on individuals to come up and pick an
item - hold it up and ask : Is it truly trash? Can it be reused, recycled
or…composted? Was it really needed or was there an alternative? Is it
hazardous? Discuss each and brainstorm alternatives for each item on
the board. Then, review Curbside recycling, what can Not go into it,
and about sorting. (10-15 min)
4. Plastic Waste – mention the Graduate movie – 1967 post-war.
Plastics were the way of the future, but now, reveal the reality and
how they’ve come full circle – we’re now seeing the repercussions.
Provide general info, non-biodegradability, etc…. (stress Styrofoam).
Talk about the oceans – pass around photos. Show and pass some
items that recycled plastics can be made into – hands on. (10 min)
5. Watch video clip (1 minute) about Refusing Plastics; Sign the
Pledge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCumZMU1y4E. Mention
Reusable vs. Plastic bags at the grocery store. Straws, plastic bottles…
6. Conclude by challenging the class to examine their consumption
and disposal habits each day and challenge them to produce as
little trash as possible. (2 min)
Recycle Utah, 1951 Woodbine Way / PO Box 682998, Park
City, UT 84068.
PH: 435.649.9698. Recycling drop open 24/7.
Visit us at www.recycleutah.org
Show & Tell items: to go container (Styrofoam), to go container paper or foil, straw, soda cup, napkin,
nail polish, chip bag, beverage ring, candy bar wrapper, sushi plastic container, plastic water bottle,
plastic bag, ABC gum, ½ sandwich in Siran Wrap, apple core, banana peel, ½ eaten bagel, empty sports
drink container, battery, CD, Booby plastic bracelet, rubber band,
US TRASH
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American produces about 4.4 lbs. of
garbage a day. That’s 29 lbs. per week or 1,600 lbs. per year. The United States produces
approximately 220 million tons of garbage each year. This is equivalent to burying more than 82,000
football fields six feet deep in compacted garbage. This amount of trash could cover the state of Texas
two and half times and also fills enough trucks to form a line to the moon. Where does it all go? A lot of
our trash ends up being buried in a landfill. The U.S. has 3,091 active landfills and over 10,000 old
municipal landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Anything that goes into a
landfill is covered with layers of clay and other materials that basically mummify the remains. This
means that without air and water, our trash has become our archival remains for future generations.
This may sound culturally resourceful, except landfills are the largest humanmade methane source in
the United States. Once methane is released into the air, it becomes a greenhouse gas. And then there
is the toxic leachate, or liquid that seeps and drains from a landfill, that ends up in our aquifers. Not a
pretty picture
Plastic Effects
• Plastic wastes can break down and release toxins that harm the environment,
animals and the general public, according to the International Plastics
Task Force. Certain chemicals--such as bisphenol A--can cause some
serious health concerns, according to an article on plastic bottles by Beth
Daley of the Boston Globe. Even low doses of bisphenol may cause
developmental problems in children.
BIODEGRADABILITY
Drop a ketchup bottle on the floor, and you'll be thankful for polyethylene terephthalate,
or PET, the nearly indestructible plastic used to make most containers and bottles. Drop
the same bottle into a landfill, however, and you might have second thoughts. Why?
Because petroleum-based plastics like PET don't decompose the same way organic
material does. Wood, grass and food scraps undergo a process known as biodegradation
when they're buried, which is a fancy way of saying they're transformed by bacteria in the
soil into other useful compounds. But bacteria turn up their noses at plastic. Load their
dinner plates with some plastic bags and bottles, and the one-celled gluttons will skip the
meal entirely.
Based on this logic, it's safe to argue that plastic will never biodegrade. Of course, that's
not the end of the story. Daniel Burd, a student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, recently
demonstrated that certain types of bacteria can break down plastic. His research earned
the top prize at the Canada-wide Science Fair, earning him $10,000 cash and a $20,000
scholarship [source: Kawawada].
Until other researchers can replicate Burd's experiment and waste treatment plants can
implement any new processes, the only real way to break down plastic is through
photodegradation. This kind of decomposition requires sunlight, not bacteria. When UV
rays strike plastic, they break the bonds holding the long molecular chain together. Over
time, this can turn a big piece of plastic into lots of little pieces.
Of course, plastic buried in a landfill rarely sees the light of day. But in the ocean, which is
where a lot of discarded grocery bags, soft drink bottles and six-pack rings end up, plastic
is bathed in as much light as water. In 2009, researchers from Nihon University in Chiba,
Japan, found that plastic in warm ocean water can degrade in as little as a year. This
doesn't sound so bad until you realize those small bits of plastic are toxic chemicals such
as bisphenol A (BPA) and PS oligomer. These end up in the guts of animals or wash up on
shorelines, where humans are most likely to come into direct contact with the toxins.
Non-Biodegradable
Styrofoam appears to last forever, as it is resistant to photolysis, or the breaking
down of materials by protons originating from a light source. This, combined with the
fact that Styrofoam is lightweight and therefore floats, means that over time a great
deal of polystyrene has accumulated along coasts and waterways around the world.
It is now considered the main component of marine debris.
Why won't recyclers take No. 1 or 2 unless it's a bottle?
A. Even though plastic bottles and tubs might have the same number inside
their recycling symbols, they are not really made of identical material. Bottles
are produced through one kind of molding process and tubs through another,
and these two processes require different plastic mixtures that melt at different
temperatures. If these plastic containers are recycled together, the result is a
mixture of material that has little value in a second round of manufacturing. If
separated, they each have greater value. Unfortunately, even when plastic tubs
are collected separately, they have relatively little value as a material to
manufacturers. Try to buy things in containers that you can recycle in your
area. (To find if you can recycle a container in your area, search 1800recycle's
on-line database.) If recycling is not possible, perhaps there is a way to reuse
such containers around your home.
Q. Why do plastics have a number on them if they can't be recycled.
A. The numbering system was designed so that plastics could be sorted
according to a few broad categories. Once the system was adopted, recycling
companies were able to identify plastic containers by type. Recycling companies
could thus separate and collect the plastic types that had sufficient market
value to cover the costs of collection and transportation. Since Washington is
distant from most plastic manufacturing markets, there are many types of
plastic that simply cannot be recycled economically in this state.
Why can’t plastics be mixed together?
The reason plastics aren’t typically melted together and then separated later is a matter of both
physics and economics. When any of the seven common types of plastic resins are melted
together, they tend to separate and then set in layers. The resulting blended plastic is
structurally weak and difficult to manipulate. While the layered plastic could in theory be melted
again and separated into its constituent resins, the energy inputs required to do so would make
such a process cost prohibitive.
How Many Types of Plastic Are There?
You may think that plastic is just plastic, but there are actually about forty-five
different families of plastics. In addition, each of these families can be made with
hundreds of different variations. By changing different molecular factors of the plastic,
they can be made with different properties, including flexibility, transparency,
durability, and more.
Problems with Styrofoam
Styrofoam has become such an accepted everyday product that people often don't
stop to realize that it is made from polystyrene. Polystyrene is a petroleum-based
plastic. In fact, Styrofoam is the trade name for polystyrene. It gained popularity
because it is lightweight, offers good insulation properties that keep products cold or
hot, and keeps things safe during the shipping process without adding weight. While
there are some positive aspects of the material, the years have shown that
Styrofoam also has harmful effects.
Environmental Health Concerns
Environmental health concerns start with the elements used to make Styrofoam.
Styrene, for example, is the foundational ingredient used to make polystyrene. It is
broadly used in the manufacture of plastics, resins, and rubber.
The EPA and the International Agency for Research on Cancer have established
styrene as a possible human carcinogen. For those who are exposed regularly in the
manufacture of products made with styrene, some of the acute health effects
experienced include:
• Irritation of the skin
• Irritation of the eyes
• Irritation of the upper respiratory tract
• Gastrointestinal effects
Chronic exposure to styrene leads to further complications, including affects on the
nervous system. Symptoms of chronic exposure include:
• Depression
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Weakness
• Minor effects on kidney function
• Styrofoam appears to last forever, as it is resistant to photolysis, or the
breaking down of materials by protons originating from a light source. This,
combined with the fact that Styrofoam is lightweight and therefore floats,
means that over time a great deal of polystyrene has accumulated along
coasts and waterways around the world. It is now considered the main
component of marine debris.
One of the most serious threats to our oceans is plastics pollution. Plastic constitutes
approximately 90% of all trash floating on the ocean’s surface, with 46,000 pieces of
plastic per square mile. Why is there so much plastic in the ocean? Unlike other
types of trash, plastic does not biodegrade; instead, it photo-degrades with sunlight,
breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, but they never really disappear.
These plastic pieces are eaten by marine life, wash up on beaches, or break down
into microscopic plastic dust, attracting more debris.
Plastic is also swept away by ocean currents, landing in swirling vortexes called
ocean gyres. The North Pacific Gyre off the coast of California is home to the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest ocean garbage site in the world. The floating
mass of plastic is twice the size of Texas, with plastic pieces outnumbering sea life
by a measure of 6 to 1. These floating garbage sites are impossible to fully clean up.
Plastic poses a significant threat to the health of sea creatures, both big and small.
Over 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds die each year from
ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic.
It takes 500-1000 years for plastic to degrade. Even if we stopped using plastics
today, they will remain with us for many generations, threatening both human and
ocean health. Despite these alarming facts, there are actions we can take to address
the problem of plastics.
Fast Facts
The average American will throw away approximately 185 pounds of plastic per year.
8% of the world’s oil is used for plastic production.
Biodegradable bags prevent the deleterious effects of plastic on ocean environments. They
break down naturally, and don’t leave harmful chemicals behind.
Plastic in the ocean breaks down into such small segments that pieces of plastic from a
one liter bottle could end up on every mile of beach throughout the world.
Approximately 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year. That’s
more than 1,200 bags per US resident, per year.
Impact of Plastic Waste on Oceans, Beaches and the
Environment
Want to know how bad plastic litter is getting in our oceans? This article provides a "snapshot" of
the harmful effects. Please read it and forward on to others. For more information, visit Plastic in
Our Oceans in our Newsroom.
Overview
We assume a few of you have heard about the "Texas-sized plastic island" off California's west
coast, but how about the disturbing news of plastic beaches and plastic sand?! Plastic is
accumulating at an alarming rate in our oceans - wreaking havoc on wildlife, polluting our beaches
and entering our food chain. Our addiction to use-and-toss items is causing this growing problem.
As reported by National Geographic
The success of the plastic bag has meant a dramatic increase in the amount of sacks found
floating in the oceans where they choke, strangle, and starve wildlife and raft alien species around
the world, according to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey in
Cambridge, England, who studies the impact of marine debris.
Barnes said that plastic bags have gone "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being
almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78 degrees North [latitude] to Falklands 51 degrees South
[latitude], but I'll bet they'll be washing up in Antarctica within the decade."
Did you know?
• Plastic bags are among the top two items of debris found most often in coastal cleanups. (Ocean
Conservancy)
• Plastic bags wrap around living corals, quickly "suffocating" and killing them. (U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
• Plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the Central North Pacific by a factor of 6-1.
(Algalita Marine Research Foundation)
• Plastic pieces can attract and hold hydrophobic elements like PCB and DDT up to one-million
times background levels. As a result, floating plastic is like a poison pill. (Algalita Marine
Research Foundation)
• Approximately 500 nautical miles off the California coast sits a growing "plastic island," a
gargantuan patch of floating plastic trash held together by currents stretching across the
northern Pacific almost as far as Japan. This "plastic island" is made up of about 7 billion
pounds of plastic garbage, and measures about twice the size of Texas.
• Each year, enough trash - most of it plastics - floats down the Los Angeles River to fill the Rose
Bowl two stories deep. (Los Angeles Times, "Altered Oceans")
• Of 500,000 albatross chicks born each year on Midway Atoll, about 200,000 die of starvation.
Adult albatrosses mistake plastic trash for food and end up feeding it to their chicks. (L.A.
Times)
• On a single day in 2007, nearly 400,000 volunteers around the world picked up more than 6
million pounds of trash. A majority of the items were single-use disposable plastic items,
such as plastic bags and Styrofoam containers. (Ocean Conservancy International)
• Since water keeps the plastic cool and algae blocks ultraviolet rays, "every little piece of plastic
manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere."
(Research Triangle Institute)
For more information, visit Plastic in Our Oceans in our Newsroom.
What can you do? Help spread the word and do your part to eliminate wasteful consumption of
plastics. Our reusable shopping bags, bottles and containers can help.
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