Personal Waste Lab Collaborators: Connor Young Abstract: The main idea of the lab is to find out how

much waste that a person will produce over four days. Two week days and two weekend days to get a better idea of life and waste produced was used. The main discovery was that most of the waste produced was plastic over paper aluminum or anything else paper came very close but was not the most of the waste like the national data would show. The experiment proved otherwise but just so barely by one single waste item. Problem: How much waste will be produced by a single person? Materials: Waste to produce Pencil Paper to record type of waste Methods: 1. Each time you throw away something over 4 days (2 weekdays and 2 weekend days) record what it was on the sheet 2. Compare to national data of waste Data: Plastic Beverage containers/lids-0 Food Wrappers-17 Non-Food Wrappers-7 Straws-0 Bags-4 Paper Cups-6 School related Papers- 10 Newspapers-2 Mail Pieces-3 Store Receipts- 5 Ticket-1 Aluminum Cans-0 Foil-1 Mixed Metal-0

Glass Bottles-2 Totals After 4 days- 60 items Total number of waste for a year- 5475 items Data Analysis: The data shows very little waste was created over those days. There was a low need for waste as many reusable items were never thrown away over those days and it was much lower than normal which is unusual for the subject. Conclusion: 1. What is done to control the amount of pollution at a landfill? There are barriers put in place to prevent the pollution from escaping into the outside world through runoff or toxic gaseous emissions. 2. Explain why such a landfill as above can cost in the millions of dollars to build and keep up It has to hold all the waste in and prevent it from escaping into the outside world so barriers have to be made special and put into place and have to be maintained over the years so it is not damaged and wont have leaks. 3. How did the amount of waste you created compare with what you expected? I expected much more waste than I actually created and I thought that I would have much larger numbers than I ended with 4. What are some reasons the average could be different than your amount for one day? The lifestyle I live can be different than the average person maybe I dont go out to eat as much and just use reusable items that can be washed. 5. One months worth of trash- 450 6. Students trash amount over a school year- 8,100,000 10. I would have produced no trash because all the items could have been recycled or reused in some way. 11. The school would produce very little trash as many of the items thrown away can be recycled like the plastic and Styrofoam and all the paper the waste would be nowhere near as much.