Waste Matters in the Pacific

Student Activities:
5. Managing Waste.

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The following activities will allow students to compare and contrast waste issues within their own communities to those presented in the case studies. They provide a link into students' personal and community attitudes, values and behaviours towards waste.

A. Whole Class Activity

Explore the following key ideas from the case studies including the social, environmental and economic aspects:

• that many imported goods create waste problems in small isolated communities
• the difficulties of recycling
• today's waste needs different disposal methods
• the impacts of waste on fragile environments
• solutions can be shared to create change

B. Waste Management Solutions

Review what students have learned about the issues and go on to identify and list the possible solutions. The solutions should include limiting the importation of items with non-recyclable packaging, designing products which reduce the need for packaging, teaching communities how to compost organic waste, sharing information and resources between communities, living more traditional lifestyles, having bigger and more frequent waste awareness campaigns, banning the dumping or disposal of waste outside of rubbish dumps or landfill sites, fining people for littering, improving packaging design.

Discuss these and other possible solutions with the students. Divide the class into new groups and give each group one of the possible solutions to explore and present. Ask students to consider the implications of their particular solution by asking the following;

• What might happen if this solution was acted upon?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages?
• How would this improve or change the environment?
• Is it the best use of community money, time and resources?
• Who will pay for it?
• What benefits are there for the community?
• Is the solution fair to all concerned?
• What are the short and long term benefits?

Invite groups to present and justify their solutions to the class as a brief report or action plan.

C. Managing our Own Waste

Students will review waste management in their own communities from a similar perspective as in the case studies; geographic location, distances from waste disposal sites, lifestyle, etc.

Activity.

Ask students to identify how waste is managed in their own community. They may work in pairs or in small groups to investigate the following:

Household, Commercial, School and Public Place Waste

• How is the waste collected - bins? what size?
• How often is it collected?
• Does the community have a recycling collection?
• How does this work - what and how is material sorted?
• Who collects the waste?
• Who pays for the service?
• How much does it cost?
• Where does the unsorted waste go?
• Where do the recyclables go?
• Where do you find out about waste collections?
• Does your council collect garden or other waste?
• What happens to unused chemicals, medicine, paint tins, oil etc.?
• What does the community/council do to reduce waste? (Campaigns etc.)

D. Where does it come from and where does it go?

Students will identify a waste stream and begin to understand the idea of waste life cycles.

i) Rubbish bin audit.

Conduct an audit of your household or school waste for two weeks. List and categorise items into materials e.g. steel, aluminium, glass, paper, food waste, etc. Take special care when handling waste. Wear protective clothing to reduce risk of injury or contact with putrescible waste such as food scraps. Make a bar graph to show amounts of each category. Make an action plan to reduce some of this waste by using alternatives that can be reused, refilled or recycled. A good place to start is in the school canteen.

ii) Komiti Tumama activity (Group).

This activity is used by the Komiti Tumama in Samoa to educate people about waste in the environment.

• pick an area in the local environment that attracts rubbish
• go there and write down all the different rubbish you can find
• every day for one week pick up the non biodegradable rubbish and bring it back to school
• identify where it came from in the first place
• what is it made of?
• think about what happens to this rubbish -- will it rot, rust, pollute?
• what can you do with it?
• what should happen to it?
• identify the possible culprit (who might have dropped it?)
• think about their behaviour
• what solutions can you think of that would stop waste being dumped in this place?
• who should you notify?
• who can help?

iii) Building a Waste Map.

Organise a series of field trips and visiting speakers for the class.

• Visit a local landfill site, waste transfer station, recycling factory, local council depot.
• Invite local environmental officers or activists, council officers, industry reps. to speak to the students and provide information on local waste issues including environmental impacts such as those from old dump sites.

This exercise is an extension of the cause and effect wheels. Students design and create a map-mural that tracks community waste from beginning to end. Include all aspects of the waste stream from large items such as cars and appliances, chemicals, food, building, paper, etc. Map from the origin of the material mining, forestry, etc. to its final resting or recycling place. The result should be of great interest to your community. Organise for the mural to be displayed in the local library.

iv) Reducing waste -- the 50% challenge

The Commonwealth government has a commitment to reducing waste going to landfill by 50 % by the year 2000. This percentage varies at state level e.g., the NSW target is a 60% reduction. Some local governments have set their own targets. Students will need to find out what their local target is, if any. Using the knowledge gained during this unit of work, build individual and class action plans to work towards that or a target decided by the class. Invite students to write a personal pledge to "live with less waste."

v) Further Suggested Activities.

• Investigate how waste was managed in your community in the past. Use libraries, museums and experts. Interview a selection of older people. Construct a timeline that shows dates where an event or change has taken place e.g. the introduction of plastic bags, milk cartons etc. Take into account pre European waste management. Is there any evidence of Aboriginal settlements, middens, etc.?
• Investigate what changes have influenced the types of waste now generated in your community.
• Design logos, graphics, slogans for a range of items that would help to promote waste reduction such as cloth bags, tee shirts, rubbish bins that would encourage proper waste disposal, signs for buses or public places. If possible, students should make prototypes, models or actual items.
• What if? (See teaching strategies.) Imagine what would happen if all the waste you, your family, class, school or community generated had to stay in your own backyard, school grounds or in a community park. What would be the likely outcomes? This could be interpreted through paintings, poems, songs or stories.
• If you were to make a time capsule that enabled people in the future to understand today's waste issues what twenty common waste items would you include? Add newspaper articles, posters and other waste related information to provide background details.

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