Waste ProjectBy Kim Trefz

Sadly America is the worst about wasting food. On average 40% of our food is thrown away, and that totals up to 145 billion dollars in food waste each year.

Every year, America throws away enough paper, plastic, cups, forks, and spoons that could stretch around the equator 300 times. About 3 pounds is wasted per person every day.

As a result, world's air is being polluted due to the landfills that are overflowing.

How can we help solve the global waste problem?How can I get my school involved in such a waste project?What does it mean to recycle? What does it mean to compost?How will this help my school in the future?How can we get more schools to follow in my school’s footsteps so we can have a greener planet?How can I think outside the box and come up with more creative recycling or composting ideas?

After watching the YouTube videos, I have several questions that I will use to help drive my research.

Thinking Routine: Think, Puzzle, Explore

What I Think about what I have seen:YouTube Link

There is so much food waste in the world that nearly 40% that is produced is never eaten. Nearly twenty-five percent of that waste is in the U.S. alone.

Elementary schools produce excessive amounts of trash in the cafeteria.

After food has been thrown away it is taken to a dump or a landfill. This is usually buried beneath the ground. There are many bad things about trash going into a landfill. As a result, the toxic waste is polluting the air, water, and is bad for the environment.

Identifying a Problem:

One year's worth of our lunchroom trash is taller than tallest buildings in the world. We need to find ways to reduce waste in our school's cafeteria.

Reflection: I have realized that I need to learn more about what it means to recycleand how I can get my school involved in the process so that together we can reduceexcess food waste.

What is Recycling?Recycling is when we reuse some of potential trash that would end up in a landfill. Many items can be reused such as plastic bottles, plastic containers, wrappers and other things. Food scraps cannot be recycled, but they can becomposted.

What will happen if changes aren’t made?Although much of what ends up in landfills is biodegradable, it won't break down if it is not exposed to air and moisture. Each year American throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam cups. Even 500 years from now, the foam coffee cup you used this morning will be sitting in a landfill.

Each bin will be color-coded and contain pictures and/or labels to help the students know where their waste goes.

There will be a bar designed for the tray to rest on as the waste is properly disposed of in the correct bin.

5th and 6th grade students will see that the food and paper waste is taken to the compost bin and that the non biodegradable is compacted for waste-pickup. All plastics can be recycled by a company that comes and collects them.

What would recycling look like in my cafeteria?

My school could build 3 recycling bins In the cafeteria so that we could sort the waste according to food compost, waste and plastics.

Compost is created when a group of green materials and brown materials mix together and decompose over time. Decomposition is when a group of multiple things break down into one whole over time. When the materials finish decomposing the result is fresh, healthy, and rich soil. This soil is called compost.

What is compost? And how can it be used?

Compost can be used at my school in the butterfly garden or for cultivating a garden where we grow our own vegetables. This could be shared with the community and helpwith feeding those in need of food.

That leads to the question of how cafeteriafood and paper waste can be composted.

If I needed to teach my school about composting, I would share the

following information:

I would help select a dry, shady area near source of water for a compost

pile or bin. Then, I would add brown and green to recycle, making sure

larger pieces are chopped or shredded. If the material are dry, I would

moisten them because this helps with the process. Once established, I

would mix grass clippings and green waste into the pile and bury fruits

and vegetables.

Adding red wiggler worms helps speeds up decomposition. When the

material at the bottom is dark and rich in color, thecompost is ready to

use. This usually takes anywhere between two months to two years.

I didn’t know that a lot of healthy food was a big part of cafeteria waste before researching all the websites. I discovered that through research that only 3% of all waste was recycled and turned into compost. Our school should increase that number and reduce waste. We should make a bigger effort in the cafeteria to only get what we can eat. A lot of kids get a bunch of food because they think they’re really hungry, but when they start eating what they got, they realize that they’re way less hungry than they thought they were. So all of that food that they put on their tray goes to a landfill, improperly decomposes and harms our environment. We could tell everyone that if it’s not eaten, it should be recycled so that it can be turned to compost and used for gardens.

Share something new that you learned through your research. Has it lead you in a new direction from which you started? What new question(s) do you have that you want to further explore?

I used to think that if waste was out of sight, it didn’t really matter where it went or where it is transported. Now I know that waste does matter, and it still has a huge effect on our environment. When I first heard about this, I thought that there was nothing I could do to help solve this waste problem. But now that I’ve been researching this topic, I know that my school can greatly help with this issue. We can connect with other schools and inform them about this worldwide problem. We can reduce the amount of food waste by asking ourselves if we should really get more than we can eat. Most problems is that kids take what they think they can eat, but then they turn out less hungry than they thought they were. If we could tell kids to look at their plate before they sit down maybe it will reduce the amount of waste thrown out each day.

Share how your research has changed your thinking by using the thinking routine “I Used to Think..... But Now I Think.....” and Make sure you elaborate.

The rubric I used for this multimedia presentation:

References Studying School Food WasteHow Much Food is Thrown Away At SchoolFood Waste FocusReduce Food WasteFood WasteSchools Waste Not!NYC Cuts Food WasteHow to Keep Food Waste Out of the GarbageGreen SchoolsNo Food Waste