Managing our own waste

Year Level: Upper primary/Lower secondary Learning outcomes Students review waste management in your own community and compare this to waste management in the past Local waste management Brainstorm the types of waste your household creates. (Think of things you throw away, wash away through drains and send into the atmosphere.) Use your local council materials and websites to investigate: How waste is managed in your own community? (household, commercial, school, community) Where does the waste go? How much does it cost? How is the waste collected? How often is it collected? Who collects the waste? Who pays for the service? Does the community have a recycling collection? What materials are collected for recycling? Where do the recyclables go? What happens to hazardous waste such as chemicals, medicine, paint tins, oil etc.? What does the community/council do to reduce waste? (campaigns etc) Discuss how these answers might differ if: you lived on an island with rocky soil so the rubbish could not be buried the community could not afford to transport the waste to a safe distance from people’s homes it cost more to transport the recyclable materials than what they could be sold for Local waste management in the past Investigate how waste was created and managed in your community in the past. Use libraries, museums and experts. Interview a selection of older people and interested groups. Construct a timeline that shows dates where an event or change has taken place, for example the middens in pre-European Australia, the introduction of plastic bags and milk cartons or changes in attitudes and laws that encourage recycling etc. Create a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the types of waste an its management in the local community today with the waste of the past. Assessment task   Recommendations about things you and your community can do to manage waste in the future. Consider ideas for limiting waste and sustainable disposal based on your comparisons with managing waste in the past.