new maryland elementary school - the gaia project waste audit summary

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New Maryland

ElementarySchool: Waste

Audit Summary

October 24th, 2013

The Gaia Project

270 Rookwood Ave

Fredericton, NB

E3B 2M2

1 (506) 442-9030

www.thegaiaproject.ca

[email protected]



New Maryland Elementary School: Waste Audit Summary

A summary of the results from the waste audit conducted on October 24th, 2013.

Copyright © 2013 The Gaia Project. Last updated on November 13th, 2013.

Commercial reproducon of The Gaia Project materials is prohibited without prior wrien permission.

The Gaia Project is a charitable organizaon dedicated to providing project-based learning opportunies in

the areas of energy, environment and sustainable engineering.

We develop projects, provide professional development, technical support and ongoing project support for

teachers and students. Our projects aim to incorporate three key principles, which symbolise our focus on

realisc environmentalism.

1. Data-Informed Decisions – We want students to be able to explain why, and quanfy the eect of

each decision they made along the way to their nal soluon.

2.

Economic Assessments – We expect students to be able to assess the cost eecveness of their so-

luons, and be able to opmize their projects with limited budgets.

3. Environmental Impact and Lifecycle Assessments – We need students to take a holisc view to their

projects. This means looking at their projects from cradle to grave, as opposed to just examining the

use phase, and acknowledging that greenhouse gas reducon is not the only environmental issue at

stake.

For more informaon, please visit www.thegaiaproject.ca

The Gaia Project

270 Rookwood Ave

Fredericton, NB

E3B 2M2

Canada

1 (506) 442-9030

[email protected]

The Gaia Project is supported by donaons and grants from:

NB Power

EcoAcon Community Funding Program—Environment Canada

Environmental Trust Fund—Government of New Brunswick

Fredericton Community Foundaon

The McCain Foundaon

The Harrison McCain Foundaon

PromoScience Program—Naonal Science and Engineering Research Council

Front Cover Credits

Wheelie Bins—Caledonia Lane photo by Geof Wilson under a Creave Commons BY-ND 2.0 Licence

© The Gaia Project www.thegaiaproject.ca




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WasteAuditSummary

Overview

The Gaia Project collaborated with Grade 4

students at New Maryland Elementary School

to conduct a waste audit on October 24th,

2013. The process, results, and

recommendaons are detailed herein.

The Process

The Gaia Project and New Maryland Elementary

students started o the morning talking about

energy, consumpon and the waste hierarchy—reduce, reuse and recycle—and why each of

these are important, and how they might relate

to the waste audit we were planning. We

discussed what kinds of things would typically

be found in classroom garbage cans, and used

this discussion to decide on sorng classes in

which to separate the waste.

Sorting classes

We decided on 6 sorng classes:

Returnable drink containers (included

milk containers)

Recyclable plascs

Paper and cardboard

Compostable material

Garbage

Metals

Collecting the Garbage

The custodial sta collected all of the garbage

at the school on October 23rd, bagged it and

placed it in the blueroom for storage. Each bag

of waste was labelled according to its locaon

at the school.

It was decided to sort each of the following

locaons for garbage collecon individually:

Kindergarten

Red Wing

Yellow Wing

Blue Wing

Sta / Oce Areas

To evaluate the eecveness of recycling at the

school, paper/cardboard recycling and

returnable drink containers were also collected

and weighed separately.

Students were divided into six groups, gloves

were provided to all students along with a

safety orientaon. Groups then opened the

bags and sorted its contents.

We subsequently weighed the contents of each

sorng category at the end of each sorng

session. The data from each group was entered

into an excel spreadsheet so that we could

build a picture of how much waste the school

produces in a day from each of the six sorng

classes. The results are detailed below.

Results

You can nd the actual weight from each

sorng class (our raw data) in Table 1 in the

Appendix. The total percentage of waste by the

various categories can be seen in the charts

labelled Graphs 1 & 2. Graph 1 represents the

waste by type, excluding the recycling. Graph 2

shows waste by type, and includes the collected

recycling.

Charts summarizing the waste audit by wing

and locaon are included in full size in the

appendix.



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Finally, the amount of waste collected and

sorted into each category has been projected

forward to provide an esmate of the waste

produced on an annual basis.

Using the assumpon of 195 school days a year,

the annual projected amount of total waste is

8,200 kg. The break down of waste can be

found in Table 2 in the Appendix. These are

rough esmate of the total waste the school

produces each year.

Summary

Through the process of measuring how much

and what type of waste at New Maryland

Elementary School it was discovered that

(Graph 1):

45% of the waste was compostable

material.

37% of the waste could have been

recycled. This includes:

Paper and cardboard (22%)

Recyclable plascs (10%)

Metals (1%)

Returnable drink containers

(including milk containers)(4%).

Only 18% of the waste was actual

garbage that needed to be there.

When auding the current recycling program

New Maryland, it was discovered that (Graph

2):

22% of the total waste was being

recycled. This includes:

Paper and cardboard (18%)

Recycled drink containers (4%)

It is esmated that each year New Maryland

diverts 1,700kg of waste, or 22% of he total

waste out of the regular garbage, though its

recycling programs for paper, cardboard and

drink containers. New Maryland should be

congratulated on a job well done.

If we found ways to divert all of the recyclable/

returnable/compostable materials, New School

could reduce their waste by an addional 5,330kg. This would reduce the total amount of

waste produced at the school to less than 1,500

kg, or by 82%.

Paper and Cardboard

Paper and cardboard recycling is already in




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WasteAuditSummary

place at the school. 50% of the paper and

cardboard collected during the sample period

was diverted for recycling, with the remaining

50% nding its way into the waste stream. The

percent of paper waste and recycled paper can

be seen in Graph 3.

The overwhelming majority of the paper found

in the waste stream was found to be coming

from the sta and oce areas of the school.

These areas accounted for almost 30% of the

paper and cardboard that was not recycled. If

the sta room improved their recycling they

could remove an esmated 420 kg of paper

every school year or 5 % of the schools waste.

As highlighted in the graphs in the Appendix, it

was observed that the amount of paper in the

garbage bins ranged from 7% of the total waste

in the yellow wing, to 27% of the total waste in

the red wing.

Returnable Drink Containers

Currently, 52% of drink containers are being

collected and recycled / returned for a refund,

as seen in Graph 4. This category include milk

containers, for which no recycling program

currently exists, so the number may be lower

than expected. This category does remain a

signicant opportunity for improvement as an

esmated 290 kg of waste could be diverted

from landll annually.

Compostable Material Forty-ve percent (45%) of the waste sorted

was compostable material, comprising the

largest category of waste produced at the

school (Graph 1). A large poron of thiscompostable material was food waste

produced in the school, by students and sta.

The kindergarten classroom represented the

single largest source of compost within the

school, although the red wing also represented

a signicant poron (detailed in the Appendix).

Compostable material from the cafeteria was

not made available at the me of the waste

audit. This could increase the amount ofcompostable material found in the waste

stream.

Recyclable Plastics

Ten percent (10%) of the waste examined was

recyclable plasc. No facilies for recycling

plasc material currently exist at the school.

The majority of this waste came from the Red

and Blue wings of the school- addressing just

these two areas would target over 55% of the

recyclable plascs in the school.

Metals

Only 1% of the waste was metal, comprising of

broken forks and food cans with the majority



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coming from the oce.

Garbage

Only 18% of the waste we examined actually

needed to go into the garbage. The area of the

school with the largest percentage of waste theblue wing, in which a signicant number of food

wrappers could be found.

Action Plan

Students worked in groups to come up with a

number of ideas to implement at New Maryland

Elementary School. A summary of these are listed

below, along with the challenges and strategy for

proceeding.

Composting

Since compost represented 45% of the waste

collected, this would be an area of high impact on

the total amount of waste leaving the school

annually. The idea of implemenng an animal-

proof composng system at the school was

discussed. In teams or classes, students couldbrainstorm on ways to build, maintain and

educate the school on the composter and their

classroom responsibilies, as well as possible

funding/materials as required. The Gaia Project

team is available to help nd appropriate funding

and materials.

Paper Recycling: Staff / Ofice

Areas

Results indicated that starooms are not recycling

paper and cardboard with the same eecveness

as students areas.

Inial steps to increase the rate of paper recyclingin the starooms could involve surveying teachers

and sta to determine the barriers to recycling in

these areas and come up with soluons to

addressing them.

Students also suggested using points as part of

the classroom monitoring of recycling bins to

increase parcipaon and increase compliance.

Paper Recycling: ImprovingRecycling Containers

Eorts to increase the rate of paper recycling

could divert an addional 22% of the total waste

leaving the school. It was noted that paper

recycling containers are not the same in every

classrooms (these can be as simple as a cardboard

box). Several students suggested the idea of

decorang the recycling containers “like Pac-

Man” in order “feed recycling” to draw more

aenon to them, with the goal of seeing

increased usage.

Waste Bins: Ratios and Locations

It was noted that mulple garbage cans exist in

certain classrooms. Improving the rao of

recycling containers to garbage cans could help.

When paired with an awareness campaign led by

students know as “Recycling Warriors”. This

would integrated into the class chores. Increasing

recycling bin rao could help reduce the amount

of waste sent to landll.

Accessibility of recycling containers and garbage

cans can play a large role in encouraging

behaviour change. Simply by placing recycling

containers in easier to access areas, and




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WasteAuditSummary

marginally increasing the eort to use a

garbage can (placing a cover, or smaller hole on

top of the can), can have signicant impacts in

diverng waste to the correct sorng container.

Assemblies / Announcements

Students proposed that it would be worthwhile

to share with the rest of the school the results

of the waste audit. An eecve way to do this

would be during the school’s assemblies or

through weekly announcements and reminders.

One Bag Challenge

New Maryland Elementary completed a One-

Bag Challenge in the spring of 2013. Eorts toconnue this tradion should be made. The one

-bag challenge allows the students and sta to

have a strong visual target to aim for,

reinforcing the recycling behaviours. This could

be accomplished by:

Establishing a single day (or week) that is

designated as the challenge day or week.

In the days or weeks preceding the event,

students can provide informaonsessions / material to their classmates

and their parents about the challenge.

Allow students and sta to present ideas

on how to achieve the one-bag challenge

goal.

Use recyclable containers to hold

your food

Only taking food to school you will

eat

The One Bag Challenge could be in conjuncon

with a school pick-nick or other school events.

Summary

The Gaia Project suggests that the school focus

inially on improving the performance of sta /

oce areas in the exisng paper recycling tohave the biggest impact in a short me period.

Over the long term focus on the development

of composng program at the school.

The Gaia Project is excited to collaborate and

assist New Maryland Elementary School in

achieving these goals.

Contact Us

If you would like more informaon, we would

be happy to discuss anything in this report. We

will be following up with you in the coming

weeks about moving some of these ideas

forward and it has been a pleasure working

with you.

Andrew Holloway

Technical Director

The Gaia Project

270 Rookwood Ave

Fredericton, NB

E3B 2M2

1 (506) 442-9030

[email protected]



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Appendix

Table2:Summaryoftot

alsforonedayperiod,andprojeconsforfull

yearbasedon195schooldaysperyear(esmatedannu

alresults)

Table1:Rawdatacollectedbystudentsshowingwastec

ategories,locaonsandweight

s

Group

Returnable

DrinkCon-

tainers(kg)

Metals(kg)

RecyclablePlascs

Pape

r&Card-

board(kg)

Compostable

(kg)

Gar-

bage

(kg)

Total

(kg)

Kindergarten

0.0

0.0

1.4

2.6

9.2

2.7

15.9

Red

1.2

0.2

1.9

3.4

7.1

1.4

15.2

Yellow

0.5

0.1

0.2

0.5

3.7

1.3

6.3

Blue

1.1

0.1

1.7

3.6

7.8

3.5

17.8

Sta/Oce

0.2

0.3

1.1

4.5

2.2

2.9

11.2

Total(ExcludingRecy-

cling)

2.9

0.7

6.3

14.6

29.9

11.9

66.3

Recycling

3.2

14.8

18.0

Total(IncludingRecy-

cling)

6.1

0.7

6.3

29.4

29.9

11.9

84.3

SorngCla

ss

D

aily(kg)

Annual(kg)

ReturnableDrinkC

ontainers

2.9

290

Metals

0.7

70

RecyclablePla

scs

6.3

600

Paper&Cardb

oard

14.6

1400

Compostab

le

29.9

2900

Garbage

11.9

1200

RecycledDrinkCo

ntainers

3.2

300

RecycledPaper

14.8

1400

Total

84.3

8200




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