Waste Diary 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 Materials: Reusable bag Municipal Solid Waste (collected in 24 hrs.) Scale Proper Disposal receptacles Problem: How much trash do I produce in a span of 24 hours? How can this amount be reduced? Hypothesis: In a span of the allotted 24 hours I will collect 90 grams of trash. Observations & Data: While collecting the trash during the 24 hour period I noticed just how much waste I create alone. Some of the products were fast food wrappers, plastic bags, plastic bottles printer paper, paper plates, paper towels, gum wrappers, and soda cans. I found that these were all regular products that I use basically everyday. The total amount of waste that I collected was 113.6 grams, which was higher than my initial hypothesis. Data Table Category Items Recyclable? Compostable? Reusable? Weight Paper products 7 6 2 Aluminum 2 2 29.3 g 3 1 15.4 g 12 9 68.9 g Metal Plastic Synthetic fibers Natural fibers Styrofoam Glass Other Totals 2 0 113.6 Pictures Questions 1. What is done to control the amount of pollution created from a landfill? Landfills create massive amounts of air, water and soil pollution. To protect the areas that surround a landfill a series of pipes and drainage systems help keep the pollution from spreading around like I normally would. Synthetic liners are also used to protect the soil around the landfill so that toxic pollutants won’t seep through to the groundwater. A lot of trash also becomes incinerated or burned, so that there is physically less waste. 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 can be potentially expensive, because they require a lot of different parts. For example the synthetic liners may cost a lot to put around the landfill. Fossil fuels are used to help burn the methane in the incinerators. Heavy machines must be bought and used to help circulate the trash around. Everybody creates waste and most of that waste can’t be reused or recycled, so then it goes to the landfill. This will continue unless we find new ways to recycle or reduce our waste amount. 3. How did the amount of waste you and your family each create compare with what you expected? The amount of waste was relatively close, but not as close as it should have been. I predicted 90 total grams and the actual amount was 113.6. I never quite felt like I used so many products then just threw them away. After this lab, I can now understand why it only takes one day for my family to fill up one entire trash bag. 4.What are some reasons the average could be different then your (or family’s) amount for one day? Larger family sizes would result in more accumulation of trash and waste. Another family might eat a lot more fast food, which could result in an increased amount of paper and plastic trash. The more people the more waste. 5. Calculate how much trash you accumulate in one month’s time: 113.6 x 30 days = 3,408 grams of trash per month 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)? 3,408g/month x 10 months = 34,080 g x 1300 students = 44,304,000 g/school year from students 7. What was the total weight of your recyclable material? 74 grams of recyclable material 8. What was the total weight of your reusable material? 0 grams of reusable material 9. What was the total weight of your compostable material? 8.2 grams of compostable material 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? 113.6 – 74 – 8.2 – 0 = 31.4 g, if all the recyclable, reusable, and compostable material was not in my trash bag, I would have 40,896 g of waste [3.408 x 12 months = 40,896 g]. After recycling, composting and reusing, I would have 11,304 g. (31.4 g x 30 days = 942 g/month x 12 months = 11,304 g/ year) 29,592 g of trash would be saved in a year. 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? 44,304,000 g/ school year from students, 942g/month x 10 months = 9420g/10 months x 1300 = 12,220,000 g of waste per school year by the students. 32,084,000 g of waste could be saved each school year. General Conclusions Evaluate your hypothesis: The hypothesis that was previously stated was quite off. The original estimate was 90g of total waste produced in 24 hours. Turns out that the actual amount of waste was 113.4g. This shows how little I actually know how much waste I produce daily. Possible sources of error: Some potential source of error from this lab may be the unpredictable factor of personal habits. Different people generate different amounts of waste each day. Another source of error may be the fact that not all waste products were collected, this means that most of the weights could be potentially higher. Food wastes and personal hygiene products were not specifically collected for sanitation purposes. Application: Many lessons and studies can be derived from this personal waste journal. Scientist could study the amount of waste produced compared to the body mass index of different people. Also the percent of reusable objects in this study was sad, maybe the makers of these products could make them reusable in a way or at least let them be recycled. Not all of the objects were recyclable either, this might help recycling companies generate new ideas of how to recycle newer products. The most shocking part of this diary was the fact that some of the paper materials were compostable. I personally did not know that paper could be composted. This may make people think about purchasing a composter, if they want to help the environment. The things we use in daily life are more than what most people may believe they use. One part that was left out during this lab was the amount of food that is wasted each year. Most fruits, vegetable and meats are compostable. Instead of just throwing away uneaten food, we could help the local soil by composting it to make nutrients. Works cited Kruszelnicki, Karl S.. "So much food, so much waste › Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science (ABC Science)." ABC.net.au. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2013. <http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/20