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Waste Audit Summary December 11, 2013
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Park Street School: Waste Audit Summary
December 11th, 2013
The Gaia Project 270 Rookwood Ave Fredericton, NB E3B 2M2 1 (506) 442-9030 www.thegaiaproject.ca [email protected]
s
Park Street School: Waste Audit Summary
A summary of the results from the waste audit conducted on December 11th, 2013.
Copyright © 2013 The Gaia Project. Last updated on January 15th, 2014.
Commercial reproduction of The Gaia Project materials is prohibited without prior written permission
The Gaia Project is a charitable organization 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
realistic environmentalism.
1. Data-Informed Decisions – We want students to be able to explain why, and quantify the effect of
each decision they made along the way to their final solution.
2. Economic Assessments – We expect students to be able to assess the cost effectiveness of their so-
lutions, and be able to optimize their projects with limited budgets.
3. Environmental Impact and Lifecycle Assessments – We need students to take a holistic 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 reduction is not the only environmental issue at
stake.
For more information, please visit www.thegaiaproject.ca
The Gaia Project 270 Rookwood Avenue Fredericton, NB E3B 2M2 Canada 1 (506) 442-9030 [email protected]
This project was supported by donations and grants from:
The McCain Foundation Environment Canada’s EcoAction Program New Brunswick Department of Environment and Local Government Environmental Trust Fund Fredericton Community Foundation Front Cover Credits Wheelie Bins—Caledonia Lane photo by Geof Wilson under a Creative Commons BY-ND 2.0 Licence
© The Gaia Project www.thegaiaproject.ca
© The Gaia Project www.thegaiaproject.ca
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Overview
The Gaia Project and Park Street School
collaborated on a audit of the schools’ waste on
December 11th, 2013. Park Street’s Leadership
students, along with Ms. Steeves, have been
working on firstly examining the school’s waste
and subsequently looking for ways to reduce
the school’s overall waste footprint.
An initial audit of the school’s waste was done
on November 21st, 2012—approximately one
year earlier— and this audit was a follow-up.
The process and results are detailed within this
report, including a comparison of the results
from November 2012 to December 2013.
The Process
For the current waste audit, the custodial staff
collected all of the garbage at the school on
December 10th, bagged it and placed it outside
for us.
Sorting categories We decided on 5 sorting categories:
Paper Recyclable plastics Milk Cartons (including recyclable drink
containers) Compost Garbage
Weighing and Sorting After deciding on our 5 sorting categories,
leadership 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 starting
amount of waste was known and could be
checked against the final amount.
Groups then opened the bags and sorted its
contents.
We subsequently weighed the contents of each
sorting 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
from each of the 5 sorting categories.
Results
The total weight of waste collected from 1
typical school day was approximately 35 kg.
The estimated total weight from one day in
November 2012 was 52 kg, representing a 17 kg
or 33% reduction over the year since the initial
audit. While there are many variables that
haven’t been controlled for, this 33% reduction
in overall waste may indeed represent a
significant overall reduction in waste at the
school!
December 2013: 35 kg total waste
November 2012: 52 kg total waste
17 kg, or 33% reduction when comparing
November 2012 to December 2013
You can find the actual weight from each
sorting category (our raw data) in Table 1 in the
Appendix. In total, on December 11th, 2013,
we sorted 22% of the total waste, or 8kg.
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© The Gaia Project www.thegaiaproject.ca
The total weight of waste by category can be
seen in the pie chart below.
As a comparison, the percentage per category
from November 21st, 2012’s waste audit is
included below.
Included below is a comparison graph, which
compares the percentage of total waste per
category from November 2012 to December
2013 and highlights the categories that have
increased and decreased.
Finally, the amount of waste collected and
sorted into each category has been projected
forward to provide an estimate of the waste
produced on an annual basis. Assuming 195
school days in a year, Park Street School
produces approximately 6,900 kg of waste
annually. These annual projections can be
found in Table 2 in the Appendix. This is a very
rough estimate.
Assuming 409 students that regularly attend
Park Street School, each student produces
approximately 0.1 kg of waste per day, and 17
kg annually.
Summary
Through the process of measuring how much
and what type of waste Park Street School
produces, it was discovered that on December
11th, 2013:
40% of the waste could have been
recycled. This includes paper, cardboard,
milk cartons & other drink containers,
and recyclable plastic.
47% of the waste was compostable
material
13% of the waste was actual garbage that
needed to be there.
December 11, 2013
November 21, 2012
© The Gaia Project www.thegaiaproject.ca
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Paper Comparing the amount of paper in the garbage
from November 2012 (17%) to December 2013
(15%), there is only a small difference (2%
decrease).
From this waste audit comparison, we can
assume that, on average, between 15-20% of
the total waste is paper.
Recyclable Plastics There was a 5% increase in the amount of
recyclable plastic seen in the current audit from
December 2013 (10%) as compared to
November 2012 (5%). This could be due to a
true increase, due to natural variance, or to
slight differences in sorting technique.
It would be safe to conclude that approximately
5-10% of Park Street’s waste is recyclable
plastics.
Compost In November 2012, compost represented 39%
of the total waste, and 47% in December 2013.
Compost likely reliably represents between 40-
50% of the school’s total waste.
Since compost represents about half of the
school’s total waste, it could be an area to focus
efforts on significantly reducing the school’s
overall waste footprint.
Garbage Between 13% (December 2013) and 22%
(November 2012) of the school’s total waste is
garbage, and actually needed to go to the
landfill. If the school was to recycle, reduce and
compost, there is the potential to reduce the
school’s overall annual waste from 6,900 kg to
~1,200 kg. This would mean that per student,
each student would only generate 3kg of waste
at the school annually, compared to the ~17kg
produced annually today.
Summary
The Gaia Project was very impressed with the
sustainability initiatives under way at Park
Street School, and is excited to see that waste
at the school has potentially decreased by 17%.
Congratulations on a job well done, Park Street
School! You definitely ‘got green’!
Contact Us
The Gaia Project is very interested in supporting
waste reduction and other energy-related
initiatives at Park Street School in any that we
can. The students, staff and administration at
Park Street School are leaders, and I look
forward to discussing this report with the
school soon!
Vanessa Paesani, Executive Director [email protected] www.thegaiaproject.ca 1 (506) 442-9030
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© The Gaia Project www.thegaiaproject.ca
Table 1. Weight (kg) per sorting category—represents 22% of total waste from day
Table 2. Estimated annual weight (kg) per sorting class
Appendix
Group Paper (kg) Recyclable Plastic (kg)
Milk Cartons (kg)
Compost (kg)
Garbage (kg) Total (kg)
1 0.7 0.7 0.8 2.6 0.3 5.0
2 0.6 0.1 0.4 1.2 0.8 3.0
Total 1.2 0.8 1.2 3.8 1.0 8.1
Sorting Class Weight of Waste
Examined (kg) Total Estimated
Daily Weight (kg) Annual (kg)
Paper 1.24 5.4 1060
Recyclable Plastic 0.78 3.4 670
Milk Cartons 1.19 5.2 1020
Compost 3.82 16.8 3270
Garbage 1.03 4.5 880
Total 8.1 35.3 6900