Recycling Awareness

The activities that we did were very successful in helping me to learn and understand the matters of recycling and caring about what goes in our garbage zll the way to the dump. The field trip and various research we did, made it clear and motivating to want to become a recycler. Different ways to incorperate participating the 4'rs in your daily life are very simple steps. Such as, maintaing the garbage you throw out and simply throw them in the recycling bin labeled for that material. Also left over foods from your Centeals can be put in the green bin along with the grass clippings and trrimmings to make compost for healthier fruits and vegitables. Routinly making an effort into buying things that are nessesary and not just wanted can help maintain the costly procedures for making things that are sold. Gathering unwanted toys, clothes , etc. and saving them to be donated and/or sold to thrift stores and such can help reduce and reuse. Special ways of recycling things like batteries and electronics are to be dropped off to the nearest waste management facity so that they can be properly recycled.
-Hayward the nearest is the Davis Street Transfer Center located in San leandro
-Contact info. (510) 638-2303

Davis Street Transfer Center

Waste Management Facility
The trip to the Davis street transfer center was a really great opportunity for a learning experience that we could be more aware about. The facility wasn't as dirty as I was expecting it to be, it was somewhat along the lines of being a clean kind of trashy. It gave me the chance to see everything in action and most of all to see and realize, that effects from what we carelessly throw out of our homes. I think that it was an eye opener and got me to see that there is a way to prevent all of the access garbage, by throwing things the proper way.



The orderliness of the facility was surprising though the aroma was horrid, they showed the different steps and procedures that they did to make sure that certain materials that could be recycled WERE recycled. The different piles and the different ways that they were able to make it more possible for the public to be more aware of helping throw out certain things that shouldn't be thrown out with the basic garbage cans.

I was able to be more aware about knowing what to and what not to throw out, also with the knowledge of recycling more often. I recently learned that throwing out things such as batteries were very unhealthy to be thrown out, and it should be thrown away in a certain manner in a certain place. I also learned that the Alameda County has taken recycling to the next level by having higher standards for the community. With the less amount of garbage and the percentage of non-recycled items. Garbage that is not recycled or reused/remade, it put into a land fill which is a very big open hole dug deep in an open land area where the trash is dumped and buried under the ground. Which is an even bigger reason and motivational subject for people to want to throw things out. because one day it is possible that the world will be filled with garbage and there won't be anymore space for homes or stores or better things that land can be used for. Not to mention the hazardous things that it does to our earth, some things are able to seep out of the land through the tarp that is thickly layered on top of the waste. Over time it will eventually erupt and cause major damage to the planet and possible to human race.

Did You Say, Compost?

On our adventurous day out to the farm we learned about composting, how to make it and the importance of it. *composting is what we use to make fruit and vegetable. Other than using harmful pesticides and etc. This is the healthiest way to make your food from. The benefits from using compost is eating healthier, without the chance of consuming harmful defective foods. The nourishment planted into the food makes it also all the more great tasting.

Hope you enjoy this educational and entertaining video!

Waste Audit

This activity is called waste audit and it is when we gather trash from the classrooms and weigh it and sort through what COULD have been recycled and/or reused in the classrooms.

Here is a picture of garbage from the school trash bin and as you start to notice, lots of paper is in the plastic bag when it can be clearly recycled. Those papers can also be reused as scratch paper and when they are done with it they could have recycled it to be made into brand new paper, for the school.
As you see here, weighing the bag is one of the easiest process' of the waste audit activity, well in most opinions its better then looking through garbage trying to find and fix another persons "mistake." on average the trash weighed about 5-8 lbs. filled with possibly anything you could think of, including things that should have been in the recycling bin.

We dumped the trash onto the tarp and these are some of the items that were found, various papers and were thrown out and it's partly a good thing that we saw some food wrappers from lunch then seeing it on the littered ground or hallways. (but in other words the food scrapings could have been composted and the wrappers could have been in the recycling trash can.

Sorting the trash was gruesome, but they were able to separate them into different piles, one for bottles, paper and food. It took some amount of extra time and volunteers but we got it done. Although, if people were a bit more considerate this job wouldn't have had to be so hard or had to be done at all.





After all the piling and sorting , we once again weighed each bag of different material and as our research shows have that the majority of the trash was filled with paper, and the other percentage was the food scrapings and the other percentage was the plastic bottles and other garbage (etc.)

Most of these materials could have been thrown out with the consideration of being recycled, reused and therfore reduced the amount of garbage at school, concluding to saving money for possibly other opportunities for students and teachers and all the same being able to practice the 4r's and leaving our school looking great. Another way that the trash and litter can be put to a minimum is that we could provide more trash bins around campus, including plenty of recycling bins as well. Maybe with even more apparent signs on them motivating them to throw certain materials in the various garbage bins.

Here is the process of the waste auditing in action!

litter survey

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

Before

And

After

This activity was to prove and show a with concrete evidence how disgusting and inconsiderate people can be when it comes to cleanliness at school. Before the school day starts off , the scenery is actually clean and somewhat peaceful. But once 11:20 hits and that bell for lunch rings the once cleaned areas begin to slowly and slowly get littered, student by student it gets dirtier by the minute. Area's such as the quad, the administration hall and the grassy area between the halls are where most students spend their lunch time at and that is where it gets littered the most, My peers who are in and support SLWRP, have taken these before and after pictures to show just how different it looks when it's clean and dirty. The amount of trash left behind is ridiculous. It's amazing how much of a difference we could make if we just tried. The places that are most populated and the areas on the way back to class are where you will find the most littered spots. As shown in the picture the grassy area used to be a very green and cleaned open area but with the littering, it makes it look ugly and dirty.

If I recycle so should YOU!

For lunch I like to gulp down on a ice cold refreshment from the vending machines, and here it shows that I had finished drinking my Gatorade o nd I'm ready and really excited to throw it in the recycling bin because it is just so much fun! I recycle on a daily basis and every Tuesday night I empty out my garbage bin full of recyclables like water bottles and milk containers and also plastic things like my little sister old broken toys and after that I throw it into the black garbage container outside, for waste management to come pick it up the next morning.
I also like to save up all the old newspapers that I don't need to throw away all together and throw it all out in the house so I can put it in the larger garbage bin. Or an alternative thing that you can do is save all the bottles till you think you have enough and drive it down to the recycling center nearest you. From home to school i enjoy the feeling of knowing I did something to keep my community clean.

Intro. letter

hey guys,
Welcome to my blog. My name is Michelle and I'm here to bring you major updates on how TENNYSONS GETTIN' THEIR GREEN ON! As most of you know taking care of the enviorment is really important, it effects everyone, in every way you could possibly think of. Here at Tennyson we are trying to motivate all the students to try and keep our campus clean and green. Giving more information on the 4 r's can give people the opportunity to KNOW more so that they can DO more. It's beneficial for everyone, not to mention the it keeps the earth feeling and lookin' at its best! Do you do the 4r's?
*recycle
*reduce
*reuse
*rot
if not, your doing harmful and hazardous things to your community and yourself.
it really isn't that hard, its almost effortless.
- Recycling at home can be throwing away anything from papers to milk cartons in the black recycling bin.
-Reducing can just mean conserving money and buying less things that you want to things that you need.
-Reducing is simple, you can sell or donate clothing that you don't wear anymore that way instead of throwing it out its being reused and not in the dump.
-Rot, sounds gross, but you need things to rot in order to make compose and make healthy foods that you can enjoy everyday. Basically, instead of grinding left over food from dinner down to the drain you can throw it in you green bin located outside of the house where your dad puts the yard trimmings in.

See, its not so bad, and it's totaly worth it, your helping the enviorment and your lifestyle.

who said being green WASN'T cool!