Nackawic Elementary School - Waste Audit Summary From May 8th, 2014

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The Gaia Project

270 Rookwood Ave

Fredericton, NB

E3B 2M2

1 (506) 442"9030

www.thegaiaproject.ca

[email protected]

Nackawic

Elementary

School:Waste Audit Summary

May 8th, 2014

s



Nackawic Elementary School: Waste Audit Summary

A summary of the results from the waste audit conducted on May 8th, 2014 with grade 4 students.

Copyright © 2014 The Gaia Project. Last updated on May 13, 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 effect of

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

2.

Economic Assessments – We expect students to be able to assess the cost effecveness 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 Canada’s EcoAcon Program

New Brunswick Department of Environment and Local Government Environmental Trust Fund

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




1

W a s t eA u d i t S umm ar y

Overview The Gaia Project and Nackawic Elementary

School collaborated on an audit of the school’s

waste on May 8th, 2014. Ms. Stone and Ms.

Rogers’ Grade 4 classes, parent volunteers, andThe Gaia Project staff examined the school’s

waste and discussed ways to reduce the

school’s overall waste footprint.

To determine the impact of any changes

implemented at the school, The Gaia Project

would be very interested in conducng a follow

"up audit during the 2014"2015 school year.

This would be done by comparing the results of

this audit to the next one, to see if the overall

amount of waste per day is reduced, and

whether there are any specific changes in the

waste categories targeted.

The Process For the waste audit, the custodial staff collected

all of the garbage at the school from

Wednesday, May 7th, bagged it and placed it

aside for use in the waste audit. Redeemable

bole recycling that had been previouslycollected (approximately one week) was

included as well.

Sorting categories We decided on 6 sorng categories:

Paper

Recyclable Plascs

Recyclable Drink Containers

Milk Cartons

Compost

Garbage

Weighing and Sorting

Aer deciding on our 6 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 final amount.

Groups then opened the bags and sorted their

contents.

We subsequently weighed the contents of each

sorng category at the end of the audit. 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

in total and in each of the 6 sorng categories.

Photo courtesy of The Gaia Project



2

T h e G a i a P r o j e c t


Results The total weight of waste collected from one

typical school day was approximately 31 kg, or

approximately 68 pounds.

The weight of recycled boles was 9 kg.Assuming this was collected over 5 days, 1.8 kg of

waste per day or 5% of total waste is currently

being diverted from the garbage desned for the

landfill through the exisng redeemable bole

recycling program.

You can find the actual weight from each sorng

category (our raw data) in Table 1 in the

Appendix. Figure 1 below shows the breakdown

of waste per sorng category from May 7th.

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. Assuming 185 school days in a year,

Nackawic Elementary School produces

approximately 5,700 kg or 12,500 pounds of

waste annually. These annual projecons can be

found in Table 2 in the Appendix. This is a very

rough esmate.

Assuming 200 students that regularly aend

Nackawic Elementary School, each student

produces approximately 0.2 kg of waste per day,

and 30 kg annually.

Summary Through the process of measuring how much andwhat type of waste Nackawic Elementary School

produces, it was discovered that on May 7th,

2014:

37% of the waste could have been

recycled. This includes paper, returnable

drink containers, and recyclable plasc.

23% of the waste was compostable

material.

40% of the waste was actual garbage that

needed to be there.

Recommendations Ms. Stone and Ms. Rogers’ Grade 4 classes, along

with The Gaia Project, brainstormed a variety of

recommendaons to go toward reducing the

amount of waste generated at NackawicElementary School. They are as follows:

Implement a composng program and

have compost bins at the school.

Place more paper recycling bins

throughout the school.

Reuse construcon, printer, and looseleaf

paper.

Wash out and keep recyclable plascs and

milk cartons to be used for arts and cras,

class projects, etc.

Talk to town council about having

recyclable plascs and milk cartons picked

up.

Figure 1. Waste per sorng category




1

W a s t eA u d i t S umm ar y

Encourage the use of reusable containers

for lunches instead of wrappers and bags

that would get thrown out.

Reuse plasc shopping bags and those that

come from the breakfast program.

Contact Us The Gaia Project is very interested in supporng

waste reducon and other energy"related

iniaves at Nackawic Elementary School in any

that we can. This includes geng a start on any

of the ideas generated by students on the

previous page.I look forward to discussing this report with the

school soon!

Thanks again for working with our team.

Vanessa Paesani, Execuve Director

[email protected]

www.thegaiaproject.ca

1 (506) 442"9030



2

T h e G a i a P r o j e c t


Table 1. Weight (kg) per sorng category.

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

Appendix Group

Returnable Drink

Containers (kg)

Milk Cartons

(kg)

Recyclable

Plascs (kg)

Paper &

Cardboard (kg)

Compost

(kg)

Garbage

(kg)

Tot

(kg

Swag 0.1 1.5 0.4 0.3 0.8 3.1 6.2

Enderman 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.7 0.8 1.5 3.4

T 0.2 0.8 0.2 3.6 1.4 4.2 10.

Awesome 0.2 1.2 0.3 0.9 1.2 0.7 4.4

Unicorn 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.1 3.0 2.9 6.5

Total 0.6 4.0 1.3 5.5 7.2 12.4 30.

Sorng Class Daily (kg) Annual (kg)

Returnable Drink Containers 0.57 100

Milk Cartons 3.99 740

Recyclable Plascs 1.28 240

Paper & Cardboard 5.45 1000

Compost 7.15 1320

Garbage 12.41 2300

Total

30.9

5700

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Nackawic Elementary School - Waste Audit Summary From May 8th, 2014

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