Little Known Ways to Support Earth Day

Posted by David Wetzel

Earth Day is around the corner - April 22nd - and every year teachers and students try to come up with new and innovative activities.

Recycling is a popular activity to keep the idea recycling going strong. Classrooms often come up with ideas to recycle paper, ink cartridges, plastic bottles, metal cans, and newspapers.

However, there are other recycling activities that students can get involved in to support Earth Day.

First, lets take a look at some recycling facts related to the United States.

Recycling Facts

The Hershey Company in the US produces about 20 million kisses each day using 133 square miles of aluminum to wrap them in; this material is recyclable and most of it ends up in a landfill.

Statistically the United States recycles just about 28 percent of its waste today, which is doubled from what it was a decade ago.

The United States recycles about 53 percent of the paper consumed.

The United States makes up about 5 percent of the world’s population and produces 1,609 pounds of trash per person, every year. This results in 5 percent of the world’s population producing about 40 percent of the worlds waste.

Considering these facts, there is still need for improvement.

Recyclable Materials Often Overlooked

Crayons

One of the most popular coloring and writing instruments in schools today. Instead of throwing worn, broken, and neglected crayons in the trash - Why not recycle them?

• More than 12 Million Crayons are made in the US, EVERY DAY!  100 New Crayons equal about 1 pound, let’s do some math.

• 12 Million Crayons equals about 120,000 pounds, which equals 60 Tons of Crayons made EVERY DAY with petroleum based wax!

• Recycling crayons has made it possible to stop more than 52,000 pounds of unwanted crayons from going into landfills with the help from schools, organization, educators, and kids across this country.

How to recycle these artistic instruments - simply throw unwanted crayons in a sturdy cardboard box (leave paper wrappers on) and when the box is full, mail it to:

CRAYON RECYCLE PROGRAM
721 Village Road
Pelican Lake, Wisconsin   54463

They will take all these unwanted crayons and recycle them to make brand new crayons.

DVDs/CDs/VCR Tapes

The recycling of DVDs/CDs/VCR Tapes saves substantial amounts of energy and prevents significant amounts of both air and water pollution attributed to the manufacturing of these items.

• A DVD/CD/VCR Tapes is considered a class 7 recyclable plastic

• To manufacture a pound of plastic (approximately 30 DVDs/CDs per pound), it requires 300 cubic feet of natural gas, 2 cups of crude oil, and 24 gallons of water

• It is estimated that it will take over 1 million years for a DVD/CD/VCR Tapes to completely decompose in a landfill

Since DVDs/CDs/VCR Tapes a class 7 recyclable plastic - many recycling centers will not take them. If a recycling center cannot be located locally, box them and ship to:

ACT
2200 Burlington
Columbia, MO 65202

Act requests submission of an Online Donor Form prior to shipment.

Alternative Community Training (ACT) has been a nationally accredited, not-for-profit agency providing support and assistance to adults with disabilities.

All DVDs/CDs/VCR Tapes should be separated from packaging materials and cases.

Additional Earth Day Resources

Environmental Uses of Phone Books

Math and Science - Integration with Environmental Science

Bottled Water Versus the Environment - Case Study

Air Pollution a Concern for World

Earth Day Activities: Environmental Uses of Phone Books

Posted by David Wetzel

Earth Day and Phone Book Activities

Ever wonder what to do with all those old phone books?

Earth Day is coming and a good earth day activity is to develop creative uses for these phone books, beyond just recycling or throwing them in the garbage.

Phone books have a myriad of uses such as shredding the pages for use as packing material, compost materials, and booster seats.

Phone Book Facts

Despite the increase of Internet based telephone number directories, the production of phone books is increasing.

Here are some facts to get you thinking about how important it is to recycle or reuse your phone books.

• On average, over 600,000 tons of phone books end up in landfills every year.
• There are enough phone books created each year to measure 106,700 miles when lined up end to end. This means they would circle around the earth about 4.28 times!
• About 80 percent of all U.S. paper mills use some recycled material in their manufacturing service. It is estimated that about 200 mills use ONLY recycled material.
• There are more than 7,000 different titles of yellow pages.
• 540 million telephone directories are distributed each year.

Earth Day Activities

Now that you see the current phone book dilemma, a good earth day activity is to find creative uses for all these unwanted phone books.

If just 500 phone books can be kept out of a land fill we could save between 17 and 31 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space and 4,077 kilowatt hours of energy according to the American Forest & Paper Association.

Example Activities include:

• Earthworm Bedding - shred the white pages and combine them with dirt, which enriches the soil as the pages decompose to support the earthworm habitat. Do not use the yellow pages, because of the chemicals.
• Mulch - tear the pages out a phone book and lay them about 6 - 8 pages thick on top of the soil in a flower garden or among shrubs. Then cover the pages with a thin layer mulch. The pages will act as shield to prevent grass from growing through the mulch. Also the phone book pages will decompose and enrich the soil over time.
• Booster Seat - use fabric to cover phone books, sealing the seams with fabric glue or needle and thread. This keeps the phone books from sliding around as kids wiggle around on them.
• Packing Material - shred phone book pages for use in packaging instead of using packing peanuts. Shredded phone book pages are biodegradable and packing peanuts are not.

Your Turn - Share your ideas for additional uses of these relics of the past.

Additional Resources for Earth Day 2010

Modeling the Earth’s Atmosphere

Creating a Nature Journal

Global Warming Science Projects

Climate Change