Chapter 3 Radical Reductions

People in the United States spend more time and money shopping than anywhere else in the world. All these purchases certainly don’t make the planet a happier place. Every single thing you buy has an environmental impact. Some are much bigger than others depending on how they are made, how much they are packaged, how far they are shipped, what it does, and what happens when we’re done using it. One of the most important – and least expensive – choices people can make to protect the Earth is to buy and use less stuff.

What It’s All About

Have you ever heard someone say “waste not, want not”? What does it mean? It means that if you don’t waste something now, you’ll still have it in the future. It’s an idea that’s especially important to keep in mind if you want to be a good steward of the Earth. Take care of the Earth and it will take care of you.

What a Waste

How much garbage do you create every day? How often do you buy new things? If you look at the facts about how much people buy and throw away, it’s pretty shocking.

• If everyone lived like an average American, it would take five or six planets to provide all of necessary resources.

• Each individual creates about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year. That’s about 4.5 pounds (~4 kg) a day and 90,000 pounds of trash in a lifetime.

• Every product leaves a trail of waste before it even hits the shelves at a store. For example, the amount of trash created to make a laptop computer is close to 4,000 times its weight.

• Each year 352 million pounds of plastic are thrown into the ocean, killing about 1 million sea creatures.

• Eighty percent of what Americans buy ends up in the trash within six months.

There is only one planet Earth. It has a limited amount of resources and a limited amount of space for garbage. People can’t continue to live this way, and the planet is starting to make that clear. Forests are disappearing, the atmosphere is warming up, and everything is becoming polluted and dirty. It’s time to start to clean things up by shopping our wasteful ways. What can each person do to stop wasting so much? Do you buy things you don’t need? What have you thrown away recently?

Trash Examination

What is waste? It’s everything we throw away and then some. Most of what ends up in landfills is paper. There’s also food, plastic, metal, glass, textiles, wood, and much more. Challenge students to think of other things that end up in the garbage. How each student keep a journal of what they throw away for a week. After a week, examine your list (or lists) to see what items were repeated most often. Is there a way to keep these items out of trash? Is there a way to reduce how much we use of them, or to reuse or recycle them?

If you’d like to make is more visual, use your classroom bulletin board to illustrate the experience. Create a picture of trash dumpster to put on the bulletin board. Place a sign over it that says, “Thing I should throw away.” Next to the dumpster, place a sign that says, “Things I didn’t need to use.” Examples of these items include plastic plates, paper plates, plastic utensils, paper towels, plastic bags, and paper bags. Assign the students to draw pictures of what was on their lists. As each child draws a picture, have her pin it on the dumpster or under the items she didn’t need.

E-SOURCE

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard is a twenty-minute fact-filled journey into the hidden life of products. From how products are made to how they are disposed of, the video is essential for understanding the social and environmental impacts of shopping. It is meant for adults, but it can be broken down into sections and taught to students. You can watch it for free online or order a DVD at www.storyofstuff.com

Global Picture

Garbage is a growing issue everywhere. Some countries are solving their garbage problems by shipping it to other places. Other countries are coming up with inventive ways to reduce how much they are creating.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

Many people forget about garbage as soon as it’s taken away, but it doesn’t simply disappear. A lot of garbage doesn’t even make it to the dump. Instead, it blows around in the wind, get stuck up in trees, or sails off into waterways. One especially sneaky item that seems to end all over the place is the simple plastic bag.

Around the world, people use about a million plastic bags every single minute. Hundreds of thousands of whales and sea turtles and other sea animals die every year from mistaking plastic bags for food. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade: they photodegrade. This means they break down into tinier and tinier pieces of toxic bits that pollute the air, water, and soil. Many countries – including China, India, Taiwan, South Africa, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Norway, and Spain – have either gotten rid of plastic bags altogether or are making people pay money for them so they use them less. Individual cities such as San Francisco have also banned plastic bags. Is this an issue in your city?

What happens to the billions of bags that are still being used every year? Many are building up in our oceans and adding to huge masses of floating plastic-trash islands. The biggest one is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that it twice the size of Texas. You can show the kids a great cartoon video about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and real-life video of kids who are making a difference at www.greengorilla.com

What can you do? Ban the bag! Make your own reusable bags in class. Work with local grocery stores to provide reusable bags for people to buy. Have the students make signs warning other about the perils of the plastic bag. Help them list ways to reuse the plastic bags already lying around your house. What ways did the students come up with?

Fun with Furoshiki

You don’t have to worry about what to do with garbage if you don’t make any. Generations of people in Japan have used a fabric-folding technique known as furoshiki (f’-ROHSH-kee) to wrap gifts any carry groceries, among other things. Furoshiki eliminates waste-like plastic bags and wrapping paper. It is reusable and can be used for many different things. You can do an online for furoshiki videos and diagrams for folding to give your students an idea of the process. Of course, the real fun is in trying yourself. Start your search for ideas at www.furoshiki.com/techniques.php

Each children needs a large bandana or scarf (thrift stores and Grandma’s closet are great place to look). You can have them make a craft that they then wrap in the fabric or have them make their own bag. You can also have them practice wrapping different shapes like books or cans. See how creative they can get with folding and knotting.

E – ALERT!

Almost everyone is familiar with the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle,” but unfortunately, most people really focus on recycling. Reducing is the most important thing to do, reusing is second best, and recycling is better that throwing something away. It is imperative to refocus attention on reduction. Embed this concept is as many class activities as possible.

For the Classroom

The typical school classroom has little waste outside of paper, but holy smokes a lot of paper gets thrown away! Let’s hope your classroom recycles, but even recycling takes energy and resources. The best opinion for the planet is to reduce, reduce, and reduce.

Paper Purge

Find as many ways to reduce paper use as you can. For example, designate a spot in the classroom for pieces of paper that have only been used on the side. Reuse these pieces for scratch paper. For older students, try to shift to e-documents. Make it an opinion to e-mail assignments so you don’t use any paper at all. Focus on activities that are based on action instead of a final product; instance, choose oral reports instead of written. Another way to reduce paper use in your classroom is to get parents’ e-mail addresses so you can e-mail announcements instead of sending home hard copies. Minimize the number of handouts you use. Research online instead of subscribing to magazines and newspapers. How many more ways can you find to purge paper? Have the kids design flyers that list the different ways your classroom has reduced paper use and waste. They can share them with other classrooms or even other schools. Better yet, make it an electronic document that you can e-mail to other staff and school.

Take a Load Off at Lunch

Students will see immediate differences in waste levels after starting a paper purge, and they can also see drastic changes if they begin planning waste-free lunches. Split the classroom into two sections: those who bring lunch from home and those who eat school lunches. Have each group brainstorm ideas for how to reduce waste. Ideas for students who bring bag lunches include using reusable containers for food and eliminating overly packaged foods like individually wrapped string cheese and single-serving potato chip bags. Ideas for students who eat school lunches are more limited because the school’s practices determine what they eat. One behavior they can control is the amount of food they take. They should only put the food they know they will eat on their plates. They can also be more conservative with using disposable items like napkins.

Take it to the next level and have your students organize a waste-free lunch day at your school. They can educate other students and staff about why it’s important and how to do it. If your school has separate lunch periods for different age groups, you can have a contest to see who generates the least amount of waste. There are great resources for conducting waste-free lunch days and even creating year-round waste-free lunch programs online through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and www.wastefreelunches.org .

School Projects

An entire school’s garbage adds up fast, but usually it’s only the custodial staff that sees it. Getting everyone thinking about reductions will lighten the load for both the school budget and waste haulers, which will also use less gas.

Paperless Office

If your students are trying to reduce paper use in your classroom, it’s time they taught the administrative staff a little lesson about going paper-less. Of course, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to get them to go completely paperless, but with a few simple tips they can probably cut their use in half - not a small amount at most school. Have your students’ conduct an initial survey with the staff asking how much paper they use had what types of things they print. Back in the classroom, have the students brainstorm ways that the staff could reduce their use of paper. Some of the most important steps they can take include printing on both sides of the paper, not printing e-mails, and trying to keep documents digital instead of printing them. Then have the kids make signs that can be posted to remind staff of these quick tips.

E – FACT

The average office worker uses 10,000 pieces of paper year. You can cut that amount in half simply by always copying or printing on both sides of the paper. Set your copies and printers to default to duplexing. When you assign papers, request that students write or print on both sides if their printer has a duplexing unit.

Make a “Paper Police” badge and regularly send students to the office to act as “paper police”. If they see that someone has forgotten one of the tips, they can remind that person to do it in the future. Students love to chide adults. Watch how quickly staff adapt to the new paperless office rules. You can find more ideas for how to reduce paper use by doing an online search of “paperless office” and by visiting www.reduce.org

Dumpster Diving

Having older children do a waste adult allows them to understand exactly what goes into their school’s garbage, and it also gets them to use a variety of mathematical concepts. You can find directions for a variety of different adults at www.recycleworks.org, but the essence of the project is to sort and weigh your school’s garbage. The cafeteria and custodial staff will need to be aware of the project, and parental permission slips may need to be mailed home, too. The day of the audit, wet waste will need to be separated from dry waste. The dry waste is sorted, weighed, and identified as recyclable or nonrecyclable. You can combine a recycling effort with a reduction effort if your school doesn’t have a recycling program yet. Still, reduction is the most important first step. What items found during the audit could be reduced or eliminated? Here are some tips for schools to reduce waste:

• Buy products in bulk to cut back on packaging.

• Buy durable products like refillable pent and rechargeable batteries instead of disposable ones.

• Remove your school’s name (or staff name) from junk mail lists.

• Use reusable cutlery and trays in the cafeteria.

• Have staff bring in reusable mugs for coffee.

What else can your students come up with after looking at the waste?

Field Trips

There’s no better way to get the big picture of how much waste people make than by seeing where it all ends up. Garbage doesn’t just disappear. Where does it go in your community?

Unlovely Landfill

Many solid waste facilities offer tours for schools. Call your local facility or local government office of solid waste to find out if there are any tours in your area. Generally, the tour consists of a presentation to the students about how a landfill is built and maintained. They also typically discuss how some garbage is diverted to recycling facilities, as well as what happens when a landfill becomes full. The tour ends with a bus ride through the dump. It is truly a field trip your class will never forget. Seeing the size of landfill and the amount to garbage gives people a sense of why it’s so important to reduce waste.

Government Garbage Control

You can call your city, country, or state government offices to talk to someone about solid waste and pollution control. Take the children to the selected government office to see where region’s waste issues are addressed. How much is created each year? What’s in it and how much? What do they do with it? What kinds of programs do they have to try to reduce waste? Do they have materials the students can take home to their parents? Have staff talk about their individual jobs and projects. You can even have the students break up into small groups and interview different staff people. When you return to the classroom, they can teach one another about what they learned.

Human Health

It wouldn’t be healthy to live in a garbage can, but people are treating the Earth like a big waste container. The more waste people create, the more it ends up polluting in the air and water. When you breathe and drink polluted air and water, you can become polluted, too.

Wastewater

Landfills are built like big swimming pool. They have special thick walls that are supposed to keep the garbage from leaking into groundwater. Still, oftentimes, over time the walls start cracking and garbage juice leaks out. You can demonstrate how this happens by creating your own miniature leaky landfill. Fill a jar with about an inch of water. Find a small plastic container, like a small yogurt container, that will sit in the mouth of the jar without falling in. Poke a little hole in the bottom of the container. Now start filling the landfill. What kinds of things end up in the garbage? Candy wrappers, old socks, dirty diapers, and much more. Using colored paper and markers, have the children draw tiny pictures of the different garbage items, or put in tiny bits of real trash. Just make sure you don’t it in too tight.

When the landfill is full, put a few drops of a dark-colored dye. This represents toxic substances such as paint and old oil that end up in the garbage. Now slowly pour in some water. This is the rain that falls on the garbage and the moisture that ends up in the landfill from old food. Watch what comes out of the hole. What happens to the water below the landfill? Did you know that many people’s drinking water comes from groundwater? What could happen if your drinking water had some garbage juice in it?

Don’t Make It, Don’t Breathe It

Reducing the amount of “stuff” people use will reduce all kinds of pollution, including air pollution. When China wanted to clean up the air for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, it shut down factories that were creating “stuff”. Those factories were creating air pollution that could make it hard for athletes to breathe. Sometimes that stuff is important, but many times it’s not so important – like plastic straws or plastic disposable forks. When people don’t use these things, no one will make them and the factories that make them won’t create pollution.

You and your students can reduce pollution by reducing your use of disposable items. Have each student create a reduce-use box by decorating a small box and filling it with reusable utensils, washable straws, small cups, salt and pepper shakers, and other items you typically get a fast food restaurant when you’re out about.

Have them bring their boxes home to their parents to keep in their car. They can reduce waste and save money by ordering a large drink and splitting it up into the cups. They can also stuff rags under the seats of their car for cleaning windshields and headlights. Can your students think other items to keep in the car to reduce waste?

Take at Home

Where there are people, there is almost always garbage. Keeping our planet from becoming one huge landfill means starting to reduce waste every day, everywhere. The lessons your students have learned at school will transfer home with easy, but here are a couple of additional ideas to really get the reduction ball rolling.

Shop-until-You-Drop-Waste

Everything people buy creates pollution. You don’t need to stop shopping, but everyone can shop smarter. Here are some ideas to reduce how much waste you create. They’ll also help you reduce the amount of money you spend. Follow these easy tips to get started:

• Make a shopping list before you go and stick to it.

• Buy things that can be reused or recycled.

• Look for items that are made from or packaged in recycled materials.

• Look for the least-packaged products and buy in bulk.

One of the most important steps you can take to reduce waste is to bring reusable shopping bags when you go to the store. You can use cloth bags you may already have lying around your house, buy reusable bags, or even sew your own.

Junk Mail Madness

No one likes junk mail, so why not get rid of it? It’s irritating to consumers and it’s incredibly wasteful, so put your foot down.

Write the Direct Marketing Association and register with their Mail Preference Service, which puts you on a list to not be contacted by solicitors. It’s a free service that last for five years, but only for national mail. All you need to do is write a letter or postcard with the date, your name, address, and signature, and write, “Please register my name with the Mail Preference Service.” Send to: Mail Preference Service c/o Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512. You can also register online at www.the-dma.org/consumers/offmailinglist.html, but it cost $5.