Recycle Everything '99!
Middle School Waste Audit Data
Waste Audit Report- March 16, 1999

The contents of the waste collected from 3/15/99 was separated and measured in two ways, gallons and pounds. The volume (gallons) is a more important measurement when cost is considered because our school is charged by how many cubic yards are thrown away each week, regardless of the weight.
Gallons % Pounds %
Paper 55 43% 50 lbs. 33%
Metal 10 8% 7 lbs. 5%
Plastic 35 28% 30 lbs. 20%
Food 7 6% 49 lbs. 32%
Other 20 16% 17 lbs. 11%
153 lbs.
Examples:
Paper- milk cartons, Kleenex, napkins, paper wrappers, bags, wax paper, xerox paper
Metal- tin cans (kitchen), tin foil, aluminum cans, tin tray, metal caps, paper clips
Plastic- plastic container bags, garbage bags, plastic bottles/caps, plastic utensils, pen
Other- foam lunch trays, styrofoam cups, foil drink packs, foam soup containers, chip bags rubber bands
Paper- We discovered that, although we are recycling glossy and office paper pretty well, we could be recycling milk cartons. (Rinsed milk cartons can be recycled with plastic containers.) Paper lunch bags could be recycled in classroom boxes. Kleenex and food contaminated napkins cannot currently be recycled.
Metal- Tin cans from the kitchen could be rinsed/recycled (in with plastic containers). We found 7 aluminum cans in the trash.
Plastic- Almost a 1/3 of our trash is plastic, mostly wrappers and containers. Try not to use things that have to be thrown away and reuse plastic bags. Could we use metal utensils?
Food- We found 49 pounds of food from school and bag lunches. All food, except dairy and meat, can be put in the white bucket in the gym at lunch time. It?s used for our vermicomposting bins.
Other- 16 % of the trash was styrofoam-containers, cups and lunch trays. The styrofoam companies boast to landfill operators that their products never break down. On this one day it cost us $6.25 to throw away our styrofoam. If we threw this same amount of styrofoam away every day for a month it would cost us about $125.00.

Summary: We are making fairly good progress with recycling our paper, glass, aluminum, plastic bottles and cardboard. We need to avoid the use of styrofoam (trays, cups and food containers) and establish a better system to recycle milk cartons and for composting food.