Do you really know what happens to your rubbish once the garbage truck drives away? Actually, once rubbish is put in a bin, the rest remains a mystery for many people. The waste companies that manage our rubbish disposal make it almost seem like magic but as our students found out recently there is much more to the process.
As part of their studies for HASS this term, we invited in a Community Engagement Officer from the Redland City Council who spoke to the students about waste management in the Redlands.
All rubbish that we put into our bins is first segregated into recyclable and non-recyclable rubbish. Recyclable rubbish is then sent to recovery centres and any non-recyclable rubbish ends up in a landfill. As part of the session we also looked at all of the different types of rubbish that we currently put into our general waste bins at school and found out which items can be recycled and which materials cannot. We also found out how long many materials take to decompose. For example, plastic bottles can take up to 450 years to decompose in landfill. Tin cans – 50 years. Glass may take up to 1 000 000 years!
The students will continue their studies looking at how to improve the waste management in our school and discuss further the concepts of Reducing, Reusing and Recycling.
