Chiara's G4 Blog

Part 2, where we have bins stationed next to the trashcan. Hm. Apparently, automatic font color is broken now. I'll have to fix that....... F| Until then, black will have to do.

Day 1; 12.1.09

Recyclables in trashcan: 20; ~25.6%

Actual Trash: 49; ~62.8%

Recyclables in Bin: 6; ~7.7%  total; ~20.7% just recycles + bins

Non-recyclables in bin: 3; ~3.8%; ~10.3% just recycles + bins

Grand Total: 78

Recyclables + in bin: 29

Day 2; 12.3.09

Recyclables in trashcan: 32; ~29.1%

Actual Trash: 74; ~67.3%

Recyclables in Bin: 3; ~2.7% overall; ~8.6% bins + recycles

Trash in Bin: 1; ~.91% overall; ~2.9 bins + recycles

Total: 110

Recyclables + in bins: 35 

Day 3; 12.4.09

Recyclables in Trash: 39; ~29%

Actual Trash: 82; ~62%

Recyclables in Bin: 14; ~9% overall; ~25% bins+ recyclables

Trash in Bin: 3; ~2.3% overall; 5% bins + recyclables

Total: 133

Recyclables + in bins: 56

 

 

...Cont. Carissa, Camilla, Jackson: please do let me know if anything needs to be fixed!

....I really, REALLY hate computer viruses. Anywho, here are the graphs for our survey results....

On a side note.... Interesting Information: Calculating Ecological Footprints

Board has been planned, and is in the process of being finished!

Taking three large cardboard boxes, we'll be forming our board with three ares: The Problem, Process and Future (may be changed as we go). The boxes will be placed to form a triangle (2 on bottom, one on top), with aluminum arrows flowing from one to another. It'll look like the recycling logo ---->

Boxes have been covered with recyclable materials and trash. Some kind of lamination will be used to make the board a single plane. 

Actual G4 info will be placed on black mat-board and some kind of 3D adhesive. 

Setbacks.... We still have to plan Trashcan Jackson and our interview and tour with the DWM. But other than that, we seem to be doing nicely in terms of progress and finish.

STILL TO DO: Call DWM, set up a tour/interview. Create quantitative/qualitative data representations. Trashcan Jackson. Board

Ooook, I think we bit a bit too much here DX We thought 100 surveys would be good, but we didn't take into account the mass amount of work it would take to grade each question....

Carissa "graded" all of the surveys

Jackson, Carissa, Camila and I all conducted 25 surveys each.

Not all surveys have been graded.

Survey Data: 69 Participants

1. Do you recycle?
2. Do you own a recycling bin?
3. What do you recycle?
4. Do you ever reuse items, if so, what? And if not, why?
5. Circle recyclables:
6. What in your opinion is the best benefit from recycling?
7. How much do you think is thrown away that can be recycled?
8. Is recycling better than reducing and reusing?

1. Do you recycle?

Yes: 55
No: 7
Sometimes/Other : 7

2. Do you own a recycling bin?

Yes: 53
No: 15
Said no, but said yes to recycling*: 9

*Most likely indicates recycling at school or the use of community bins/facilities

3. What do you recycle?

Carissa: I can try both bar graph/pie chart, and we'll pick the best looking one :)

Everything (Or some derivative)
(These answers are vague): 12

No answer: 5
Answered something not recyclable: 3

Paper included in answer (Any paper, excluding wax paper) : 31
Cans (aluminum) Included in answer: 31
Plastic Included in Answer (Bottles) : 30
Cardboard included in answer: 8
Glass Bottles included in answer: 11
Foil included in answer: 6
Misc: 4

4. Circle the Recyclables:

Grading Scale: Out of 12; Surveys from ESS (Per. 6), Psych (Per. 2), Bio (Per. 4)

Total Surveyed (as of now: 69)

0-6: Failed ----> none

7-8: D ----> 11

9-10: C/B ----> 44

11-12: A ----> 13

Most people scored a 9 - 10, meaning average knowledge of recycling and participation.

5. Do you ever reuse items? If so, what? If not, why?

Overall yes: 58
Overall No: 11

Containers (May include tupperware, other food containers): 12
Bags (plastic grocery, zip lock): 18
Bottles (Include both glass and plastic): 33
Paper: 15
Clothes: 3

6. What, in your opinion, is the best benefit of recycling?

Includes information about the environment: 39
Includes information about reusing:23
Includes Information on energy: 3
Misc: 2
No answer: 2

7. How much do you think is thrown away that could be recycled?

Data needs to be finished scored. From what I've seen, there's a mass amount of best-guess percentages and "a LOT"s.

8. Is recycling better than reusing and/or reducing?

Equal: 23
No: 19
Yes: 11
Depends: 6
No answer:6
Mislead information: 4

 

 

Links:

Some Sources 

  

We are trying to set up a tour of the facility as well as a possible interview with the staff regarding energy used in recycling. Contact information for DWM (link thing not working here!!! Whyyyy?) :

http://www.denvergov.com/recmor/ContactsMoreInfo/tabid/425384/Default.aspx 

Survey:
Survey will be given to 100 people, both inside and outside of GW, and possibly outside.
Questions:

1. Do you recycle?
2. Do you own a recycling bin?
3. What do you recycle?
4. Do you ever reuse items, if so, what? And if not, why?
5. Circle recyclables (diagram will be given)
6. What in your opinion is the best benefit from recycling?
7. How much do you think is thrown away that can be recycled?
8. Is recycling better than reducing and reusing?

Last week (week of Oct. 5), we had planned to put Project Trashcan into effect. We had already cleared the project with Mr. Goldstein, as well as the head of the cleaning staff. Unfortunately, the message to not clear the trashcans in the North Lobby wasn't properly distributed. Not only were they empty, all the OTHER ones were empty as well, leaving it impossible for us to wiggle in our procedure. We plan to talk to the people again, so that we may continue with this part of the G4 Project.

Materials:

• Gloves
  
• Rolling Cart
• Plastic Wrap
• Masks (?)
• Trash & trashcans

Procedure:

Week One: No recycle bins next to trashcans

1. Take the 8 trashcans from the North Lobby, loading them onto the rolling cart, to the basement level outside the Wood Room.
2. Lay plastic wrap on floor, and dump contents of each trashcan one by one onto the wrap. Separate the contents into two piles: trash and recyclables. Separate the recyclables into their respective types (plastic, paper, etc.)
3. Record findings.
4. Repeat for each trashcan.
5. When finished collecting data, take percentage of recyclables found in trash.
6. Separate trash from recyclables, and dispose of as required.
7. Repeat process throughout the week.

Week Two: Have recycle bins next to trashcans

1. Follow same procedure as Week One, but this time take into account amount of recyclables in the recycle bins.
2. Take percentage.
3. Interpret data.

Miscellaneous Data

Taken from the Recycling Meeting on Oct. 7

• Recycling, though useful, does not fully dispose of the problem as the recycled materials are just used to make more environmentally unfriendly products.
• Reusing is the best way to handle the problem.
• 2,000 trees from the rainforests are cut down every minute. Growing back trees individually is more than 10-times slower than the destruction.
• The recycling process is EXTREMELY long and takes up energy:

1. Recycle, collect, deposit, sort (with highly advanced technology - does that mean less energy consumption?), degrade to simplest form, turn into a cube.  
2. Collect cube, melt, use energy to create new item.
3. Repeat process
   

So, after some group thought (and meetings), we've decided that our topic will be...

The energy used in recycling vs. getting new, and its effect upon the environment.

...Or something like that. We're not exactly sure if that's how it will be worded or fully worked. But that'll be the overall theme.... As for its contents, we plan on researching and observing the amount of energy used to create objects from recycled items, versus just making new ones, as well as its effect on environments (on energy use and non-recycling). We would also like to see if recycling has a huge impact on families - are they recycling everything they can (do they know ________ is recyclable?), do they reuse everything, or do they not bother? In the form of a survey and implied test (like a recycling bin next to the trash can), we'd like to measure the motivation of people to recycle and reuse. This motivation is an extremely important part to reducing the amout of junk in our dumps and on the planet, but is it enough to really nurse it back to health? And if not, then what do we do?

Note to self: Board is made of recycled trash? =9 Like, put together from papier-mache or cardboard, and decorated with wrappers and potentially recyclable materials. I have a recipe for all-natural rice glue (fancy way of saying crush Filipino rice into sticky mess) that we can use :)

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 throughout 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.

~Carissa Marsh

Note: In order to make sure the results are accurate, we may have to use more than 5 trash cans, experiment more than once (i.e, throughout the week, several days).... Enough so that we have a fairly accurate average. Exact procedure to be discussed further with group~

After some trouble, finally joined Carissa's G4 group. Our possible topic as of now is the 'energy use of Cancer Cells vs. Normal Cells and their effect upon the bodily system.' We chose this topic because it's something we all found interesting, rather than a generic bland topic. May have some trouble linking to Environmental Systems, though. We'll see how it turns out.

Leader: Carissa Marsh
Chiara Gonzales
Camila Prado-Irwin
Jackson Downing