Environmental Science 15th Edition by Scott Spoolman,Tyler Miller

Exercise 3

Collect the trash (excluding food waste) that you generate in a typical week. Measure its total weight and volume. Sort it into major categories such as paper, plastic, metal, and glass. Then weigh each category and calculate its percentage by weight of the total amount of trash that you have measured. What percentage by weight of this waste consists of materials that could be recycled? What percentage consists of materials for which you could have used a reusable substitute, such as a coffee mug instead of a disposable cup? What percentage by weight of the items could you have done without? Compare your answers to these questions with those of your classmates. Together with your classmates, combine all the results and do the same analysis for the entire class. Use these results to estimate the same values for the entire student population at your school.