Purpose

This board is designed to show the significance of recycling and how
much energy can be saved. It shows that it is effective in the respect that it helps with the fossil fuel consumption as well as helping to preserve our earth. It also shows it is not hard, but people simply do not have enough understanding or care.


Rubber cement
Construction paper
Matting board

Conclusions
Pasting

First Day with bin

Total Recyclables in Bin
9 items

6 yes, 3 no

Trash
Total
9
69 items

20 yes = 29%

49 no= 71%

General Information

Title: Reduce Reuse Recycle:

Question: How prevalent are the Three R's, and how could they influence energy consumption?

Purpose: To determine the knowledge of recycling in various individuals.

Conclusion for survey:
The general populace has some prior knowledge of recycling, but very few know a good deal about it. People know there are ways to recycle, but many do not utilize this information as well as possible. When we asked people to circle the recyclables given, the majority of people got anywhere between 67% to 92%. This shows us, the majority of people do not realize the range of recyclable items, but still know enough to make a slight impact on the environment.

Trashcan Jackson Data, First 3 Days

G4 Trashcan Jackson

Day 1
Total: 213

Recyclables: 55 items 26%
Trash: 158 items 74%

Day 2
Total: 81

Recyclables: 21 items 26%
Trash: 60 items 74%

Day 3
Total: 89

Recyclables: 27 items 30%
Trash: 62 items 70%

Energy Data to support our point

Energy Data
Aluminum
In just America, 35 billion aluminum cans are thrown away every year. If all of these cans were recycled, it would it would save the equivalent of 150 Exxon Valdez oil spills.* The energy savings are so great, that in 1992, the energy savings could power a city the size of Pittsburg for 6 years. Using these statistics, one aluminum can can power a TV for three hours.

*Famous oil spill, one of the most devastating human-caused environment disaster. Spanned across 1,300 square miles and spilled 10.8 million U.S. gallons of crude oil.


Glass
By recycling one ton of Glass, you can save 10 gallons of oil. And recycling one glass bottle saves the energy needed to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.


Paper
Americans, in newsprint, throw away the equivalent of 30 million trees a year. In office paper, americans throw away 4 million tons, which is enough to build a 12 foot tall wall from California to New York. For every ton of that paper, the amount of energy that can be salvaged is equivalent to approximately four barrels of oil, 4200 kilowatt hours of energy and enough energy to heat and air-condition the an American home for 6 months. It also creates 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution.

Plastic
Plastics are made from petroleum. In 1987, America used about 1 billion barrels of oil which was enough to meet the oil demand for imported oil for about five months. However, it all went to making plastics. The average American uses about 200 pounds of plastic in a year and about 60 pounds of it for packaging. Americans use 4 million plastic bottles every hour and only 25% of them are recycled.

Steel
Annually, by recycling steel, enough energy is saved to supply Los Angeles with 10 years of energy. However, only 30% is recycled. By making tin cans from recycled steel, only one fourth of the energy is needed, as opposed to creating the new steel.It also creates only one fourth of the water and air pollution as opposed to making new.

Misc.
In just America, enough Aluminum is thrown away that could rebuilt the air fleet 71 times, enough steel to recreate Manhattan, and enough Wood to heat 5 million homes for 200 years.


Recycling uses far less energy than recreating materials. The following are the percentage of energy salvaged.

Aluminum at 95%
Copper at 85%
Plastics at 80%
Steel at 74%
Lead at 65%
Paper at 64%




http://www.bringrecycling.org/benefits.html

http://www.bir.org/aboutrecycling/index.asp

http://www.oberlin.edu/recycle/facts.html#tires

http://www.bir.org/aboutrecycling/index.asp

Trashcan Jackson

Trashcan Jackson

Research Question:
We are going to investigate how much people throwaway when they could recycle, and how much people recycle that should be thrown away.


Hypothesis:
We believe that there is going to be a large percentage of thrown away goods that could be recycled. We also believe that although there is a recycle bin next to the trashes, there will still be a good amount that is thrown away that could be recycled. We also think that in the recycle bins there will be some, but not a ton, of recycled goods that should have been thrown away. All of this points to our overall point for this project as a whole; that we believe there is not enough understanding about recycling and that recycling could be much more effective and could help the planet if people understood.


Variables:
Control: The trashcans used, what is considered trash/recyclables
Independent Variable: The absence or presence of the recycling bin
Dependent Variable: How much trash/recycling is collected

Materials:
4 trashcans to collect trash
One trashcan to put the collected trash into
Recycle bins
Gloves
Paper/Pencil

Procedure:
1) Decide which 4 trashcans to use
2) After lunch for 3 days collect the bins. *NOTE Do not have recycle bins in the area
3) Count how much trash is in each trash can, and how many recyclables there are in the trash cans.
4) Replace the bins
5) On the fourth day, put at least 2 recycle bins in the hallway you chose to have the trashcans in.
6) Count the trash in the trashcan, as well as the recyclables
7) Count what is recyclable in the recycle bin. Also take note if any non-recyclables are in the bin.


Data: (There is a different post for these Data collections)



What we still need to do:

One more day of trashcans
Three more days of Trashcans/recycling

The "Problem" Portion of our Board

Research Question: We are investigating how recycling is related to energy use in our everyday life, and what the significance is when applied to reducing, reusing and recycling.


Hypothesis: We believe that energy can be saved using the recycling. However, even if this is true, we must make recycling more prevalent because people do not recycle to the full extent that they could. People may have distored perception of the costs and benefits of recycling. We hypothesis that even though recycling is well known and people are aware of it, they may not realize exactly how much they could benefit the world.

Trash Can experiment: We will pick 5 trashcans in the school. If there is a recycle bin next to them, for the first week we will take this away. For three days, we will go through the trash and see how many recyclables are NOT being recycled, and are thrown away. The next week, we will place recycle bins next to the trash cans, and do the same process, only this time we will also see how many recylables were recycled.

Survey:
Here are the following questions:
Do you recycle?
Do you own a recycling bin?
What do you recycle?
Circling recyclables: Tin foil, cigarette butts, plastic bottles, glass bottles, window glass, plastic caps, toothpaste tubes, Styrofoam plates, aerosol cans, wax paper, wrapping paper
Do you ever reuse items? Is so, what? If not, why?

A long series of survey outcomes

THESE ARE ALL THE SURVEYS
THERE WERE 100 PEOPLE SURVEYED


Question: Do you recycle?
Yes: 83
No: 7
Sometimes (At school) : 10

Question: Do you own a recycling bin?
Yes: 76
No: 13
Said no, but said yes to recycling: 11

(Interesting)

Question: What do you recycle?
(CHIARA: this should probably be in a bar graph, it has alot of info and i dont think it would work well in a pie chart)


Everything (Or some derivative)
(These answers are vague): 15

No answer: 5
Answered something not recyclable: 3

Paper included in answer (Any paper, excluding wax paper) : 53
Cans (aluminum) Included in answer: 40
Plastic Included in Answer (Bottles) : 47
Cardboard included in answer: 15
Glass Bottles included in answer: 21
Foil included in answer: 8
Misc: 6


Circling recyclables:
Percentages
12/12: 100%
11/12: 91.66%
10/12:83.33%
9/12: 75%
8/12: 66.66%
7/12: 58%
6/12: 50%
5/12:41.66%
4/12: 33.33%
3/12: 25%
2/12: 16.66%
1/12: 8.33%
0/12: 0%

12/12: 3
11/12: 16
10/12: 33
9/12: 29
8/12: 18
7/12: 1
*None below 7


Do you ever reuse items? Is so, what? If not, why?
Overall yes: 84
Overall No: 16

Containers (May include tupperware, other food containers): 17
Bags (plastic grocery, zip lock): 27
Bottles (Include both glass and plastic): 45
Paper: 21
Clothes: 4


What, in your opinion, is the best benefit of recycling?
Includes information about the environment: 60
Includes information about reusing:24
Includes Information on energy: 3
Includes information about trash: 5
Misc: 4
No answer: 4




How much do you think is thrown away that can be recycled?

"Alot" or "too much" :47
A percentage greater than 50%: 12
Percentage less than 50%: 9
"Not much":1
No answer or "Not sure": 5



Is recyling better than reducing and reusing?
Equal: 29
No: 26
Yes: 20
Depends: 11
No answer:9
Mislead information: 5

The Invesco Field Information

I interviewed a man named Chad Miller while at Invesco Field.

He was at Invesco to recycle electronic devises.
He states, that "5 million should be recycled, but only 2 million is." He also stated that recycling just "makes common sense" and firmly believes that recycling is more important than throwing away.

To recycle electronics, they have to take all the parts and break them up. They seperate them into plastic, steel and memory chips, and then do with them what they will. In some cases, they reuse them by selling them to people. In other cases, they recycle them and melt them into new parts.

He gave me a website, which can be viewed HERE it is called, "Think Green."

One part of this site that I found interesting was that they can make landfill waste into renewable energy. They can power 400,000 homes every day from just this.

Here is what the site said about this project. "That offsets almost 2 million tons of coal per year. These projects also reduce emissions of greenhouses gases into the atmosphere – an added bonus for our environment. Waste Management currently has 110 landfill gas-to-energy facilities and is working toward a widespread implementation for the future."

I think this is an interesting point in our project, because it shows that people can make energy from waste. This could be beneficial to humans in many ways. This could mean we do not have to burn fossil fuels as much, and it means we are doing a renewable energy everyone can take part in.

The Updates, as of now.

The most recent thing I have done to help move our project along was to go to Invesco Field while there was a huge recycling collection going on. It was amazing to see all the work that was going on. I am organizing information into a word document, which I will put up here sometime this week.

A new topic!

So we have decided that we will do a project on recycling. Here is the information we have currently, and will act on as of now.

Name: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle."

We will measure the energy and materials used to make new materials and recycle materials. Our control will be simply reusing items.

We will make a table for each person in our group, and record what we throw away and what we recycle. The recycling will include, in a seperate space, what we found we are now consciously trying to recycle, and what we have been recycling.

We will survey a minumum of 25 people.
Sample quesions are as follows.
"Do you recycle?"
"Do you own a recycling box?"
What, typically, do you recycle?
Do you ever reuse items? If so, what?

Trash Can Jackson
We will pick 5 random trashcans through out the school. If there is a recycle bin next to them, for the first week we will take this away. For a week, we will go through the trash and see how many bottles are NOT being recyled, and are thrown away. The next week, we will place recycle bins next to the trash cans, and do the same process, only this time we will also see how many bottles were recyled.

We will also go and talk with the factory that recycles items, the the place were trash goes. This will help us to see exactly how much energy is used.

Board: Hand-made. We will reuse materials, and use recycled materials. This means we will use carboard boxes, decorate it with wrappers and items that are potentially recyclable.

So this will be the official blog for my G4 project. I have never made a blog, so please bare with me through this process.
My group members are; Camila, Jackson and Chiara. We are tossing around the idea of doing something with Cancer cells, and how they use energy.