What It's All About
Have you ever heard someone say “waste not, want not”? What does it mean? It means that if you don't waste something now, you'll still have it in the future. It's an idea that's especially important to keep in mind if you want to be a good steward of the Earth. Take care of the Earth and it will take care of you.
What a Waste
How much garbage do you create every day? How often do you buy new things? If you look at the facts about how much people buy and throw away, it's pretty shocking.
If everyone lived like an average American, it would take five or six planets to provide all of the necessary resources.
Each individual creates about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year. That's about 4.5 pounds a day and 90,000 pounds of trash in a lifetime.
Every product leaves a trail of waste before it even hits the shelves at a store. For example, the amount of trash created to make a laptop computer is close to 4,000 times its weight.
Each year 352 million pounds of plastic are thrown into the ocean, killing about 1 million sea creatures.
Eighty percent of what Americans buy ends up in the trash within six months.
There is only one planet Earth. It has a limited amount of resources and a limited amount of space for garbage. People can't continue to live this way, and the planet is starting to make that clear. Forests are disappearing, the atmosphere is warming up, and everything is becoming polluted and dirty. It's time to start to clean things up by stopping our wasteful ways. What can each person do to stop wasting so much? Do you buy things you don't need? What have you thrown away recently?
Trash Examination
What is waste? It's everything we throw away and then some. Most of what ends up in landfills is paper. There's also food, plastic, metal, glass, textiles, wood, and much more. Challenge students to think of other things that end up in the garbage. Have each student keep a journal of what they throw away for a week. For younger students, have them work together to keep track of classroom trash for a week. After a week, examine your list (or lists) to see what items were repeated most often. Is there a way to keep these items out of the trash? Is there a way to reduce how much we use of them, or to reuse or recycle them?
If you'd like to make it more visual, use your classroom bulletin board to illustrate the experience. Create a picture of a trash dumpster to put on the bulletin board. Place a sign over it that says, “Things I should throw away.” Next to the dumpster, place a sign that says, “Things I didn't need to use.” Examples of these items include plastic plates, paper plates, plastic utensils, paper towels, plastic bags, and paper bags. Assign the students to draw pictures of what was on their lists. As each child draws a picture, have her pin it on the dumpster or under the items she didn't need.
The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard is a twenty-minute fact-filled journey into the hidden life of products. From how products are made to how they are disposed of, the video is essential for understanding the social and environmental impacts of shopping. It is meant for adults, but it can be broken down into sections and taught to students. You can watch it for free online or order a DVD at www.storyofstuff.com.
