Lesson Overview

Students will learn about how proper recycling can save energy. Students will play a “recycling relay” game to learn hands-on what is recyclable in their community. Students will use the iWarm tool from EPA to calculate the energy saved from recycling and identify actions they can take to reduce waste.

Target Grades: 6-8

Set Up Time: 15 minutes

Class Time: 2 hours (over two class periods)

Lesson Resources

Objectives

1. Identify what can be recycled in your community

2. Explain how recycling saves energy

3. Recognize how much energy is saved from recycling different materials

Guiding question: How can proper recycling help save energy?

Educational Standards

ALASKA CULTURAL STANDARDS: B3 & B4

ALASKA ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS:
Reading for Informational Text: 6-8 RST.IKI.7; 6-8 RST.KI.1; 6-8 RST.CS.4; 6-8 RST.IKI.7
Writing: 6-8 WSLST.PDW.6; 6-8 WSLST.RBPK.9
Speaking and Listening Standards: 6-8 SP.CC.1; 6-8 SP.PKI.4; 6-8 SP.PKI.5; 6-8 SP.PKI.6

ALASKA MATHEMATICS STANDARDS: 6.NS.5

ALASKA SKILLS FOR A HEALTHY LIFE: A6, B1, B4, D1

ALASKA DIGITAL LITERACY STANDARDS: 6-12.KC.4; 6-12.GC.4

ENERGY LITERACY CONCEPTS: 6.7 & 6.8

NGSS: MS-ESS3-3

Lesson Preparation:
  • Read the Background section below
  • Research what is recyclable in your community
  • Gather some waste products to show as examples or what is recyclable and what is not
Gather Materials:
  • Computers or tablets with Internet access (1 per group of 2-3 students), with iWARM tool downloaded *Note: the iWarm tool is not fully compatible with Mac computers and some functions are not available
  • Variety of recyclable and non-recyclable materials
  • Recycling and Energy PowerPoint presentation (and computer/projector set up for viewing)
  • Recycling at Home student worksheet (1 per student)

When evaluating the energy needs of a community, waste is an important consideration that is sometimes overlooked.  Waste management includes recycling, collection, transportation, storage and treatment of waste.

Due to high transportation costs, most items brought to rural villages in Alaska stay there permanently. In addition to the energy used to transport an item, there is also energy associated with making the item and the materials that go into the item, which adds up to it’s embedded energy. While the best way to reduce waste is to buy/select items that don’t create waste (“reduce”, “rethink” and/or “refuse”), or reuse/repurpose items, recycling items does save energy. Aluminum is especially energy-intensive and up to 90% of energy can be saved by recycling it. This makes aluminum a valuable resource, and West Rock Recycling in Anchorage purchases aluminum by the pound, including from rural communities.

Diverting items from the landfill can also save on space, which can be critical for areas that may not have enough land area for safe disposal waste. Community dump sites can pose a problem for public health if they are not managed properly.  For instance, disposed items can leak contaminants into the soil and enter village drinking water sources. Some Alaskan communities burn trash in large pits to save on space, but this can create dangerous emissions, in addition to any contaminants that may be leaching into the soil and water. 

There are many factors that affect what can be recycled in a community such as value of material being recycled, cost of transportation to buyer, and cleanliness of recycled material. The cost of transportation of recyclable materials to the buyer is usually the main factor which prevents many Alaskan communities from recycling. However, in addition to the benefits as explained above, reducing waste also uses fewer natural resources and reduces your carbon footprint.

The EPA has a tool called the “iWarm widget” you can use below to compare recycling and energy:

Carbon Footprint – The amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels by a particularperson, group, etc.

Embedded Energy– Energy required to produce, manufacture, and transport a good (attempts to measure the total of all the energy necessary for a product’s entire life cycle)

Kilowatt Hour (kWh) – The amount of energy, often electricity, used by an appliance/house/school/etc over time.

iWARM – A tool developed by the EPA based on their “WARM” (Waste Reduction Model) software which helps solid waste planners and organizations track and voluntarily report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions from several different waste management practices. The “iWARM” tool the students will use is an excel sheet that is a simplified version of the WARM tool and allows individuals to estimate how much energy (in equivalent kilowatt hours) is saved by recycling different items.

Landfill – A place to dispose of refuse and other waste material by burying it and covering it over with soil.

Municipal waste – Solid waste produced by households and commercial buildings, consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. Municipal waste does not include industrial, agricultural, or biomedical waste.

Natural Resource– Materials or substances such as minerals, forests, water, and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain.

Plastic ID Numbers – The numbers on the bottom of plastic containers. Values range from 1-7

Recycle – Collect and convert used materials (that would otherwise be waste) into materials that can be used to make new goods/products. 

Gear Up:
  • With help from students, identify the different types of waste produced in your community.
  • Discuss which types of waste they think can be recycled and which cannot.
  • Ask what other ways they know of reducing their waste (such as composting, reusing, reducing, etc). 
  • What are ways that they or the school already recycle and reduce waste? Discuss why not everything can be recycled in every community.
Activity:

Day 1

  • Show the Recycling and Energy PowerPoint presentation, which includes information on embedded energy, what happens to items when they are recycled, what is recyclable in Anchorage, and what each recycling ID number means.
  • Play recycling relay: Break students into two or more groups. Each group has a bag of mixed trash and recycling and two boxes placed some distance away from them (one for trash and one for recycling). Alternatively, you can download, print, and have students cut out the Recycling Relay Cards. Students go one at a time, taking one item at a time, to place it in recycling or trash. Once all groups have completed the relay, discuss what was correct and incorrect. The team with the most correct answers at the end wins! 
  • Discuss the remainder of the presentation, including plastic ID numbers, supply and demand, and the other “rs” for reducing waste: refuse, reduce, reuse, and rot (compost).
  • Send Recycling at Home worksheet home with students to complete using items from their trash and recycling.
  • DAY 2
  • Day 2 activity: Place students in groups of 2-3 and have them total the amounts of materials from everyone in their group (from their worksheet they took home). They then enter the total amount from the group into the iWARM worksheet. For students or groups who did not complete the form, use trash from the classroom or use a standard amount of materials. Ask for predictions on which items save the most amount of energy, and which save the least.
  • Once they have entered all the data, students select in box 3 which appliances they would like to compare energy savings. A graph is automatically created in that same sheet. Explain to the students that in the results section, the more hours that are available for the appliance to be used, the less energy it uses. If an appliance can only be used for a few hours compared to other appliances, it means that appliance uses a lot of electricity. Recycling isn’t always saving just electricity (although some is saved), but the tool converts the different energy types saved (such as heat, gas, resources saved, etc) into electricity savings to compare energy saved from different recycled items. Note: The automatic chart function does not work on all computers (especially Macs). Ensure all macros are enabled and protect mode is off. The values are still automatically calculated and students can make their own graph depending on time and skill level.
  • Each group creates a presentation (download the Student Presentation to use as a template) using the chart and other information and presents to the class. Students should include if their predictions were correct for which recyclable items save the most energy, what actions they and the community can do to reduce waste (try to encourage more than just “recycle”), which appliances selected for comparison use the most electricity, and anything else they learned.
Extension:
  • If available, arrange for a community waste manager or staff member to visit the classroom and discuss specific challenges that the community faces with waste management and the energy required for management. Or, take a trip to your local landfill to discuss on location.
  • Have students investigate what type of recycling is available in their community. What are the barriers for expanding the recycling program?  What are some non-traditional or creative ways that they can recycle?
  • Have a Recycled Art Show where students create practical items or art pieces from “junk.”
  • Stage a debate on ways to reduce waste in your community (see 9-12 lesson “Community Waste Debate”). Topics like a community plastic bag ban, implementing community aluminum recycling, and starting paper recycling at school could all be debated.
  • Discuss how much energy can be saved from other types of waste reduction (the other “rs” – reduce, reuse, rot, refuse, rethink).
  • Discuss the importance of waste reduction as it relates to decomposition rates. Ask students create a timeline of items in terms of how long it takes each item to decompose. This can be done using the report “How Long Does it Take Garbage to Decompose?” (download from “Lesson Resources above”) as a guide or completing individual research. Why do some items take longer than others to decompose? How can knowing about this influence our purchasing and recycling decisions?
  • Have the students choose one commonly used item and tell the “story” of its life cycle, from extraction of raw materials, to processing and manufacturing, transportation, use, and disposal. Alternatively, have them complete a mock life cycle analysis of the item, as described in this lesson from Teach Engineering as a guide. Older students can choose more complex items to analyze.
Evaluation

Ask students to:

  • Identify both recyclable and non-recyclable materials relevant to their own communities’ regulations
  • Identify items within their own families’ waste stream that are recyclable
  • Work in teams to build a data set of how much recyclables they collectively produce at home
  • Collaboratively create a presentation that reflects how much energy their recycling saves