Week 5: Talking Trash

People don't spend much time thinking about garbage. But, maybe it's time we did. Every day, each American throws out almost 5 pounds of trash -- and over half of that ends up in the landfill.

Once we throw garbage away, we usually forget about it. But the trash can is far from the end of the story. Our class talked about the two most common ways to dispose of trash (burying and burning), and why both can cause problems for our planet. Next, we played a game called, "Reuse. Reduce. Recycle." We went through a bag of typical items people throw away, and figured out how we could have avoided the landfill by reusing, reducing and/or recycling. The kids had lots of creative ideas!

Hammond pulls a toilet paper tube out of the bag!

Noah, Will and George ponder how to 
Reduce, Reuse or Recycle a cracker box.

Evan and Porter find a new use for an old toy.



 Elena was surprised to find an old banana
in the garbage bag.We talked about recycling them
into banana muffins --
and then we ate some for snack! 



Enjoying "recycled bananas"

Finally, we took old T-shirts and transformed them into reusable grocery bags -- a great example of reducing, reusing and recycling. Most of the kids didn't finish the project, so here's an easy-to-follow YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6JNEsOx3U

Next week we'll be talking about eating locally and how many "food miles" it takes to get our dinner to our plate. Plus, we will make a recipe featuring local foods. See you then!