Expand Your Environmental Horizons
LESSON 5
You Can Make a Difference
While it may seem overwhelming, YOU can make a difference in your school, home and community. One of
the best ways to become an environmental steward is to learn about the various ways that individuals
can make a difference, and determine small steps that YOU can take. No one person can do it all, but by
working together, we can establish a sustainable community.
What can YOU do?
• Be a good citizen: find ways to help in your community by using your talents and skills to help others.
Then, get out there and volunteer.
• Reuse, Recycle and Reduce: Look at your habits at home and school, and determine how you can
change your attitude and actions to make a difference.
• Support your community: Buy local products, learn how your city/county government operates, and
get involved!
• Reduce your footprint: Conserve energy, water and other natural resources, as well as reducing the
amount of toxins in your cleaners, pesticides, etc.
• Lead the way: If your school or community does not have an environmental program, join together
with other students, teachers and parents and start one.
Recycling—It Just Makes Sense
Practicing waste reduction, reuse and recycling, as well as purchasing recycled products, help improve
efficiency, conserves natural resources for a sustainable future.
While landfill disposal is often the most inexpensive and convenient method of ridding ourselves of products
and goods that have reached the end of their useful lives. But landfill disposal is an inefficient use of natural
resources.
According to the Center for Sustainability and Commerce at Duke University, the average person generates 4.3
pounds of waste per day. Approximately 55% of 220 million tons of waste generated each year in the United
States ends up in one of the over 3,500 landfills. Much of the waste produced is recyclable and can be diverted
from landfills with a little bit of effort from each of us.
• Recycling 1 ton of aluminum can prevent 13 tons of carbon dioxide from entering our atmosphere.
• According to Earth911.org, even recycling 1 aluminum can save enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb
burning for almost four hours or run your television for three hours.
• For every 1 ton of plastic that is recycled we save the equivalent of 2 people’s energy use for 1 year,
the amount of water used by 1 person in 2 months’ time and almost 2000 pounds of oil.
How Does a Recycling Facility Work?
Ever wonder what happens to your recycling once it leaves your house/school?
Each recycling facility will have its own specific process, but this is a general overview of what happens to
recycled materials.
1. When collection trucks arrive at the materials recovery facility, all of the bottles, cans, paper,
cardboard, and other items are unloaded. A front-end loader puts the recyclables into a hopper that
feeds them to a conveyor belt.
2. Trash and corrugated cardboard are pulled out by hand and dropped into separate chutes that go to
large bins below. Trash is trucked to the landfill and cardboard goes to the fiber baler.
3. Slotted rollers pull out and crush glass bottles.
4. The conveyor feeds the remaining stream of recyclables to a rake-like separator that allows plastic and
metal containers to drop off to a side conveyor. Paper and cardboard roll over the top.
5. On a similar container line, various types of plastic bottles are pulled off by hand and dropped into bins
for the container baler.
6. After plastics are removed from the container line, a rotating magnet above the line grabs steel metal
cans and pulls them into a bin. After steel cans are removed, an eddy current separator is used to
remove aluminum cans from the line.
Make a Recycling Center
You’re a recycling pro by now! So get everyone together, and start a recycling program at your
school. Here are some tips for creating your own recycling program.
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Decide what can be recycled in your school district (paper, plastic, printer cartridges, batteries, etc.). Then, make
sure to sort objects according to the rules.
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Determine how you will sort your recyclables. For instance, will each grade level have a recycling area? Will you
have small stations in each classroom? Consider having a contest between grades or classes to challenge each
other to recycle.
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Form a recycling club to be responsible for the program. This club should include faculty, students and parents
who will brainstorm ideas, set up recycling stations, determine who will get recyclables taken to the local facility,
etc.
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Be creative: Use different colors and shapes for all different recyclables. Have your students create maps with all
recycling stations marked on them.
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Have your students create brochures or fliers about recycling to share with parents and the community to
encourage recycling and showcase your school’s program. Expand recycling and environment into your
curriculum.
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Make sure you know how many classroom, lounge and cafeteria recycling containers will be needed - you don’t
want to have an overflow of recyclables!
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Brag on your program! Enter the Good Sports Always Recycle challenge at www.Eastman.com/GSAR to have
your recycling program recognized as one of the top in Tennessee, and win money to continue your program.
Create a Landfill
A landfill is an area used to store trash. A hole is dug out, lined with protective coverings, filled
with trash, and then covered by soil. When the landfill is full, a final covering of clay and soil is
placed over the trash. To remove methane gas (a by-product of decomposition) pipes are
placed into each level of trash.
Materials:
• 2-liter plastic bottles
• Sand, gravel, topsoil, clay dirt
• Red or green food coloring
• Clay
• Water
• Straw
• Trash
Directions:
• Cut the bottle in half.
• Tap 3 holes into the bottle cap, and put it back on the bottle.
• Put the top half of the bottle upside down inside the bottom of the bottle
• Pack down the clay at the bottom of the bottle.
• Place trash in and insert straw, straight up and down.
• Layer the three soils (sand, gravel, topsoil)
• Continue to layer with trash, straws and soil until you reach the top.
• Add food coloring to your water, and pour into the landfill. You can see the water drain
through.
Paper Mache Project
Paper mache is one of the most environmentally friendly projects. Here is how students can
have fun, while being earth-friendly at the same time.
You Will Need:
• Newspaper
• Mold (such as a balloon)
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups cold water
• 2 cups boiling water
• 3 tbsp. sugar
To Make Paste:
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Mix together flour and cold water in a bowl.
Add this mixture to the boiling water and allow it to return to a boil.
Remove from heat and stir in the sugar. As the 2 cups cold water mixture cools it will thicken.
You can also just make a quick water paste by putting flour in a bowl and adding water until you have kind of a
soupy paste.
To Make Your Shape:
• Tear (don’t cut) narrow strips of newspaper or newsprint. Narrower strips work best when using a
rounded mold. For flat or rectangular surfaces, larger strips are ok.
• Dip the strips into the paste, coating completely. As you lift the strip out, run it between your thumb
and forefinger to squeeze out excess paste.
• Then drape the strip across your mold. Overlap strips slightly as you go – the torn edges will blend
together and your final product will have a smoother finish. You may need more than one layer of
paper. It’s best to allow each layer to dry before putting another on - this means some projects could
take several days.
Classroom Activities
What’s in your classroom?
Locate and list the items in your classroom that could fit into the following categories:
Biodegradable
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Non-biodegradable
Recyclable
Reusable (for something other than its primary purpose)
Can become litter
Can be made into compost
Can produce hazardous smoke if burned
Can injure wildlife if not disposed of properly
Look at this list and determine if you could replace items in your classroom with more environmentally
friendly versions; identify where you could reduce your waste, recycle more, etc.
Test Your Skills
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Think of 15 different uses for a soda can instead of recycling it.
Find 15 new uses for an empty two-liter bottle.
What can you do with an old greeting card?
Think of 15 ways to reuse an empty plastic soap bottle.
How many ways can you think of to use an old sheet of paper?
What are some things you could do with soda lids or pop tops?
What kind of art project could you create using aluminum, plastic and other recyclables?
Think of 10 ways you can reuse your old plastic bags.
What is the most creative thing you can think of to reuse?
What are 3 things you and your class can do today to make the planet a better place?
Recycling Fun Facts
• A wide variety of different materials can be recycled, including paper, plastic, glass, metal,
textiles and electronic equipment.
• There are different methods of waste collection. These include drop off, buy back centers, and
curbside collection.
• Every Sunday, the United States wastes nearly 90% of the recyclable newspapers. This wastes
about 500,000 trees!
• In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in
garbage.
• Turning of the water while brushing your teeth in the morning and before bedtimes can save
up to 8 gallons per day.
• Recycling 1 ton of paper saves enough energy to power the average American home for 5
months.
• Over 55% of the trash that ends up in the trashcan could be recycled.
• To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.
• Recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials.
• Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose.
• Plastic thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.
• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours.
• There is no limit to the amount of times aluminum can be recycled.
• Every day American businesses generate enough paper to circle the earth 20 times.
• One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year.
• You can earn money by saving and crushing aluminum cans that scrap companies will buy.
• Glass never wears out. It can be recycled forever.
• Americans use 4 million plastic bottles every hour, but only 25% of plastic bottles are recycled.
• Compost will add so much nutrition to your garden that if you do it right you will need little
else to make your garden grow.
• Tons of food is wasted every year! Buy smaller amounts of food to reduce waste.
• The average American uses about 680 pounds of paper every year.
• Approximately 1 billion trees worth of papers are thrown away each year in the U.S.
• Americans use 2,500,000 plastic water bottles every hour.
• Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. All of
these jars are recyclable!
• Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be
composted.
Field Trip Ideas
There’s no better way to learn than by first-hand experience.
Plan a field trip to learn about recycling in your community.
Visit a recycling facility.
Learn firsthand how waste is handled in your school’s community. Take an afternoon trip to a
recycling center or landfill in your area. If a field trip is not possible, ask a representative from
the center to visit your school. Visit www.cleanup.org to find out what facilities are in your
area.
Spend a day outdoors.
Take an afternoon and clean up your community. Take your class to a nearby park, river, lake
or mountain range and have the children help beautify their community. When you return
discuss what you saw and what you can do to help prevent nature from being polluted.
Visit a local manufacturing company.
To understand more about recycling, it is important to learn how the products are
manufactured. Take your class to a local bottling company or any other company that
produces a recyclable material so children can have an appreciation for how everyday goods
are produced.
Talk to the experts.
Find a local environmental or recycling expert to talk to your students. He or she can provide
first-hand knowledge, statistics and information to your students about recycling and the
environment.
Share what you learn.
Designate a teacher or student to be the photographer during the field trip. Once the photos
have been printed, have the class create a collage in the school’s lobby or hallway. Also, have
each student write a sentence or two about what they learned about recycling during the field
trip to be posted in the collage.