the gaia project - hazen white saint francis waste audit summary, june 5th, 2014

8/11/2019 The Gaia Project - Hazen White Saint Francis Waste Audit Summary, June 5th, 2014

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The Gaia Project

270 Rookwood Ave

Fredericton, NB

E3B 2M2

1 (506) 442-9030

www.thegaiaproject.ca

[email protected]

Hazen White

St. Francis School:

Waste Audit Summary

June 5th, 2014

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Hazen White-St. Francis School: Waste Audit Summary

A summary of the results from the waste audit conducted on June 5th, 2014.

Copyright 2014 The Gaia Project. Last updated on June 11th, 2014.

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

The Gaia Project is a charitable organizaon whose mission is to empower youth to make informed deci-

sions about energy and its impact on the environment.

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 / www.projetgaia.ca

The Gaia Project

270 Rookwood Avenue

Fredericton, NB

E3B 2M2

Canada

1 (506) 442-9030

[email protected]

This project was supported by donaons and grants from:

The McCain Foundaon

Environment Canadas EcoAcon Program

New Brunswick Department of Environment and Local Government Environmental Trust Fund

Front Cover Credits

Wheelie BinsCaledonia 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 and Hazen White-St. Francis

School collaborated on an audit of the schools

waste on June 5th, 2014. Ms. Connors grade 4

class and The Gaia Project sta examined the

schools waste and discussed ways to reduce

the schools overall waste footprint.

This audit can be followed up in the future by

another audit to assess how well

recommendaons and waste reducon

soluons, arising from this project, have been

implemented. This would be done by

comparing the results of this audit to the next

one, to see if the overall amount of waste perday is reduced, and whether there are any

specic changes in the waste categories

targeted.

The Process

For the current waste audit, the custodial sta

collected all of the garbage at the school onJune 4th, bagged it and placed it aside for use in

the waste audit.

Sorting categories

Ms. Connors class and The Gaia Project decided

on 5 sorng categories:

Paper & Cardboard

Recyclable plascs

Recyclable Drink Containers

Compost

Garbage

Weighing and Sorting

Aer deciding on our 5 sorng categories,students were provided with gloves, divided

into teams and provided with a kit of supplies.

Before any bags were opened, the weight of

each bag was recorded so that the starng

amount of waste was known and could be

checked against the nal amount.

Groups then opened the bags and sorted its

contents.

We subsequently weighed the contents of eachsorng category at the end of the audit. The

data from each group was entered into an MS

Excel spreadsheet so that we could build a

picture of how much waste the school produces

in a day in total and in each of the ve sorng

categories.

Photo courtesy of CBC.


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WasteAuditSummary

used only on one side)

Make bigger signs for the recycling bins.

Include pictures on the signs to make it

clear which item goes in which type of

recycling.

Bring your lunch in re-usable containers

and avoid keeping it in baggies.

Work with other students, teachers, and

sta members to develop a school

compost program.

Place small compost bins in each

classroom.

Re-use boxes and llable water boles.

With complete recycling of all possible materials

and a full composng program, Hazen WhiteSt.

Francis School could reduce its annual waste

producon to 1,900 kg (a 70% reducon), which

is only 11kg per student per year and 60 grams

per day!

Contact Us

The Gaia Project is very interested in supporng

waste reducon and other energy-related

iniaves at Hazen WhiteSt. Francis School in

any that we can. This includes geng a start on

any of the ideas generated by students above.

I look forward to discussing this report with the

school soon!

Miles Go, Technical & Program Ocer

[email protected]

www.thegaiaproject.ca

1 (506) 442-9030


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TheGa

iaProject


Table 1. Weight (kg) per sorng category.

Table 2. Esmated annual weight (kg) per sorng class

Appendix

Group

Returnable

Drink Con-

tainers (kg)

RecyclablePlascs (kg)

Paper &

Cardboard

(kg)

Compost (kg) Garbage (kg) Total (kg)

1 0.4 0.7 2.3 2.4 1.8 7.5

2 0.4 0.5 1.8 1.6 1.7 5.9

3 1.6 0.6 2.7 4.3 5.2 14.3

4 0.3 1.6 0.2 1.6 1.4 5.1

Total 2.6 3.4 7.0 9.8 10.0 32.7

Sorng Class Daily (kg) Annual (kg)

Returnable Drink Containers 2.63 500

Recylable Plascs 3.37 640

Paper & Cardboard 6.95 1,320

Compost 9.82 1,870

Garbage 9.97 1,900

Total 32.7 6,200

the gaia project - hazen white saint francis waste audit summary, june 5th, 2014

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