Green Up Our Schools!
National Elementary School Waste Reduction & Recycling Program
Change your school, change the world!
Home . About . Apply . FAQs . Donations & Sponsorships . Facebook . Newport-Mesa . Denver . Contact Us
Colfax’s Waste Assessment
Procedure:
1. All the trash produced in the lunchroom in one day was set aside by the custodial staff.
One day in the lunchroom produced 5 full bags of trash, not including food waste, which is always separated out and put down the garbage disposal.
2. A group of student helpers and a representative from Green Up Our Schools weighed each bag of lunchroom trash using the following method:
·
A student stepped on the bathroom scale and his weight was recorded.
He was handed a full bag of trash and the new weight was recorded.
The second weight was subtracted from the first to get the weight of the trash bag.
3.
Next, the students went around and collected all of the trash from the classrooms, office, and bathrooms.
This trash, which filled one 32-gallon trash can to the brim and weighed 38 pounds, was sorted into two categories (using gloves!):
recyclables – classroom/office paper, cardboard, cans, bottles, etc.
non-recyclables – all other trash such as paper towels, plastic bags, etc.
Using this method, we discovered Colfax Elementary produced 146 pounds of trash from the lunchroom in one day, and 149 pounds of food waste.
The students discovered that over half of the materials found in the classroom trash were recyclable. By volume, 50% of the trash was recyclable.By weight, 66% was recyclable.
(Weight of Student + Bag) - (Weight of Student) = Weight of Bag
Back to Colfax’s Page
-017.png)
-018.png)
-019.png)
