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Recycling at Home - An Update

A Feb 05 to March 06 Comparison of Stittsville P.S.'s Garbage
Garbage for February 2005
February 2005
Garbage for March 2006
March 2006

April 16, 2006

The included photos compare Stittsville Public School's garbage of February, 2005 (before "Recycling at Home") and the garbage of March, 2006 (now that they are doing "Recycling at Home").

John Todd, a teacher at Stittsville has provided us with the following information:

Summary:

  1. “Recycling at Home” has greatly reduced our volume of garbage (one sixth).
  2. Compostables and recyclable food and drink packaging have almost been eliminated.
  3. We still need to improve at recycling paper and boxboard.
  4. We should soon be able to reduce our garbage to one tenth or better of that of February, 2005.

A More Detailed Comparison:

The two garbage audits compared here were based on garbage collected from the whole school after the children had had lunch. On February 2, 2005, “Recycling at Home” was not being done throughout the school. On March 29, 2006, “Recycling at Home” was being done in Grades 1 to 5, and partially in Kindergarten.

  1. Without “Recycling at Home”, 4 full garbage bags were collected in February, 2005. With “Recycling at Home”, a partially filled bag (approximately 2/3) was collected in March, 2006. This is a six fold reduction in what we send to the landfill.
  2. “Recycling at Home” has almost eliminated the presence of compostable material, recyclable metal, recyclable (by the city) drink boxes, and recyclable (by the city) plastic from our land fill contribution.
  3. In the February, 2005 audit, a dozen or more drink containers contained 1/5th or more liquid. There was no significant quantity of liquid in the small number of drink containers in the March, 2006 audit.
  4. The most recent audit shows that approximately half of our garbage consists of recyclable paper (wet but clean paper towels, writing paper, packaging) and boxboard. By improving at recycling paper in classrooms, we will be able to reduce our landfill contribution to ONE TENTH OR BETTER than that of February, 2006.
  5. The pictures show piles labelled this way: (“Recycling at Home” has eliminated some!)
    1. Writing paper
    2. Garbage
    3. Milk and juice boxes
    4. Recyclable metal, #1 plastic, #2 plastic
    5. Drink boxes containing 1/5th or more fluid
    6. Compostables
    7. Wasted food
    8. Damp but clean paper towel (recyclable)
    9. Reusable plastic bags
    10. Reusable objects (spoons, glue sticks still containing glue, pencils, and drink bottles)
    11. #3 to #7 plastics (not sorted in 2005)