Recycling for Our Community and Our World

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Denise Scribner

Ecology

Eisenhower High School

Why Worry?

Global Warming

• Global warming refers to the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.

• Global warming can cause: -changes in rainfall patterns -a rise in sea level -a variety of effects on humans, plants, and wildlife• Global warming is mainly caused by human

activity!

http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/change.html

Greenhouse Effect• The greenhouse effect is the rise in the

Earth’s temperature due to gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane.

• These gases are called greenhouse gases because they trap in the heat and energy from the Sun in order to warm the Earth. Think of an actual greenhouse around the Earth. These gases are the Earth’s greenhouse.

• Without these gases, the Earth would be approximately 60°F colder, which would make it impossible to live.

http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/greenhouse.html

Greenhouse Effect

• Since the Greenhouse Effect is how our Earth is heated, we must try to protect our atmosphere as much as possible.

• Humans are damaging the atmosphere by burning resources, such as fossil fuels.

• Fossil fuels: substances found below the Earth’s surface that can be used as a source of energy. Petroleum, natural gas, and coal are fossil fuels.

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/kids/space/glossary.htm.

When do We Send Greenhouse Gases into the Air?

• You may not know it, but you send greenhouse gases into the air every day! You do this when you:

-Watch TV -Use the air conditioner -Use a hairdryer -Microwave a meal• Most of these actions require electricity, which

comes from power plants. Most power plants burn fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, which produces greenhouse gases. These gases are what damages our Earth’s atmosphere.

You can make a difference if you ….

Reduce

Reuse, and Recycle!

Reduceto use less; Conserve energy, water,

and non-renewable resources. • Turn lights off when you leave a room. • Don’t leave cell phone chargers, hair dryers, etc.

plugged in—they use electricity even when they are not on—phantom power

• Don’t leave your television on at night—use the timer.

• Take showers instead of baths and turn the water off when you are shampooing your hair.

More Ways to Reduce

• Use cloth towels instead of paper towels

• Use a mug instead of styrofoam• Don’t buy new—go to the DAV,

Salvation Army, garage sales and second hand stores first

• Use a cloth bag instead of paper or plastic

• Wise Consumer Selections—look at packaging

What do we use Packaging For?

• Packaging is the name given to the containers in which products are bought, sold and transported.  It is an important part of everything we buy. Most foods and drinks come in some type of packaging – imagine what would happen if this wasn't the case!  Packaging is made from a variety of different materials, including paper and board, glass, steel, plastics and aluminum.

There are four main reasons for packaging:• To preserve food

  • To contain objects so that they can be transported safely

  • To describe and identify the contents, so that customers can

find out the contents, weight and purpose of a product. 

• To protect the contents so that goods arrive without damage or spoilage

How Do We Reduce Packaging?

• Packaging stops goods from going to waste, but it also ends up as waste itself.  We need to try to reduce the amount of packaging we throw away by:

• Looking for packaging that is made from recycled materials.This way, you know that the packaging was made using the least amount of natural resources and energy possible. 

• Looking for packaging that can be recycled.This way, you can continue the recycling loop.  

• Choosing products carefully and make sure that things are packaged in the way that best suits how we are going to use them.This way, we don't use more packaging than necessary

Water Conservation!

• Water Conservation refers to reducing the use of freshwater.

• Earth is 2/3 water, but all the fresh water streams only represent one hundredth of one percent (0.01%) of that total.

• Using less energy will help conserve water because it will cause less air pollution, which will cause less acid rain to pollute our streams and rivers.

http://educators.kypride.org/

Reuse

• Reuse—to clean or repair something old and use it again instead of throwing it away.Example: Make crafts using cans (pencil holders); make quilt pieces out of used clothing; make Halloween costumes out of used clothing.

Recycle

• Recycle- to make new products from old ones.

• Since recycling saves energy, it saves fossil fuels because products are usually made by burning fossil fuels as a source of energy. This also produces less pollution

Seven Items You Didn’t Know You Could Recycle!

1. Athletic Shoes-Nike will recycle any brand of athletic shoe through it’s Reuse-a-Shoe program.

You can drop them off at any Niketown store orNike Factory store. You can also mail them in. Thecompany uses the footwear to make sportssurfaces for basketball courts, tennis courts,running tracks, and playgrounds. To date, app. 20million pairs of shoes have been recycledworldwide through this program.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21642033

2. “Techno-trash”-VHS tapes, game cartridges, digital cameras, MP3 players, cords, cables, cassettes, VCRs, and even computer monitors can all be recycled!

A company called Greendisk will reprocess this technology

in an eco-friendly way. You can mail your techno-trash to

the company. The cost is $6.95 for 20 pounds of

equipment.

3. Computers-Most major computer manufacturers now offer some type of recycling program-Dell, Hewlett Packard, Gateway, Apple, and Toshiba. It is important to recycle computers because they contain harmful chemicals that damage the environment. Never just throw a computer or monitor away!

4. Exchange your goods.

The Freecycle network (www.freecycle.com) is an internet community with chapters all over the world, in which people offer up items they no longer want and other people take them. You can get on this network and get rid of almost every usable item you could think of.

www.swaptree.com You list the books, CDs, movies, and video games that you want to trade and the books, CDs, DVDs and video games that you want to receive and swaptree does the rest.

5. Handheld Devices- You can recycle old cell phones, pagers, and PDAs. Drop them off at Staples stores, which has partnered with Collective Good (www.collectivegood.com), which is a nonprofit organization that reuses the phones or metals inside them.

6. Dry-cleaning Hangers and Plastic- Some dry cleaners will take them back and reuse them, and some tailors and alteration shops will take them also. However, dry-cleaning is harmful to our environment because it uses a chemical called “perc,” so it would be better to avoid it altogether.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21642033

7. Soiled Glass and Plastic- The recycling plant should be able to remove contaminants from most jars or bottles. However, the cleaner the recyclables are, the less energy it takes to process them. You should rinse them as you empty them and bag them separately.

Aluminum

Aluminum is a valuable resource and the easiest to reuse.

Today, aluminum and aluminum alloys are used to make cans, foil, kitchen utensils, and parts for airplanes, rockets, and other items that require a light material that is strong.

97%percent of aluminum bauxite ore is imported—so it is better to recycle the cans so that it can be made into another can or other aluminum product.

Alloy—a homogeneous mixture or solid solution of two or more metals

Eggland, Dlabay, and Burrow. Intro. To Business. P. 133. 2004.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/alloy

When you recycle plastic, you save:

PetroleumPetroleum is used to

make most plastic.

Recycled milk jugs are used to make plastic lumber, which has proven to be very durable, dog collars, T-shirts and more.

By Recycling Paper you save:Trees, which provide oxygen and animal

habitats.Paper is made from wood pulp.

Recycling also saves landfill space; land is a valuable resource. Cities are having to send their trash down rivers on barges. Finding landfill space is getting difficult.

Vocabulary• Global Warming-the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and

oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation

• Greenhouse Effect-phenomenon whereby the earth’s atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the presence of gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane that allow incoming sunlight to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the earth’s surface

• Greenhouse Gases- Carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane

• Conservation—using wisely; avoiding waste

• Energy—the power to do work; making new items from recycled ones takes less energy than making products from brand new materials.

• Landfill—a specially constructed site for safely and effectively disposing of garbage

• Polymer—long chains of chemicals, that can be twisted and molded into products. Petroleum is heated at very high temperatures to be broken down into polymers and made into plastic.

• Water Conservation-using less water—a valuable natural resource

• Non-renewable resources-a natural resource that cannot be remade, re-grown, or regenerated on a scale comparative to its consumption.

Let’s Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!

It’s worth the effort to ensure our future and the future of generations to come!

Sources

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming • http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/• http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/kids/

space/glossary.htm• http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21642033• http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/

default.aspx• http://en.wikipedia.org/