How Can a Community Prolong the Life of Its Landfill?

Grade 7 Physical Science - Interactions with Ecosystems

Outcome IE7.1  Analyze how ecosystems change in response to natural and human influences, and propose actions to reduce the impact of human behaviour on a specific ecosystem.  (b)  Propose ecological questions to investigate arising from practical problems and issues.

This activity uses a "you-tube" video (Love to Love You Landfill) and pictures from the Prince Albert Landfill to generate dialogue on what is filling up our landfills and what we can do to reduce the amount of material that reaches the landfill.

Objectives

• Students will understand that landfills need upkeep and have a life span
• Students will understand some processes and consequences of garbage disposal
• Students will find ways to increase the life span of a landfill (personally and as a community)

Lesson 1

Materials

Photos of landfill

and
Assortment of garbage
OR
Pictures of assorted garbage

Instructional Procedures

1) Play music video "Love to Love You Landfills" on YouTube

2) Show students the display (or pictures) of "garbage". Explain these items are examples of "solid waste". Every community must have means or procedures to deal with solid waste materials. Household waste is just one source of material that is found in the "waste stream". What else may make its way into the "waste stream"? (construction waste, tires, paint, etc.)

3) Discuss how your community manages waste. (back alley collection, recycling programs, composting, landfill, etc.)

4) Show pictures of the Prince Albert landfill. Allow some discussion of their impressions of landfills. What do they notice about the photos of the landfill? (There are some piles of sorted materials.) This is to get the students thinking about the processes that a landfill uses to divert the waste materials.

1. Why should materials be sorted before they reach the landfill?
2. What do you think happens to the materials that are sorted?
3. What do you think happens to waste material that is already mixed together (ex. household waste)?

6) Bringing students back to group, discuss answers.

1. The materials need to be sorted so they can be recycled and, in the process, diverted from landfills.
2. The materials are sold or distributed to recyclers.
3. Material that is already mixed together is a problem and very little can be done with it. This is the material that is filling up the landfills. It would be extremely expensive and time consuming to attempt to sort through the material.

* Teacher Note * Students may bring up the concept of decomposition in the landfill. Explain to students that most things will decompose if given enough time. You may choose to share the "decomposition rates" table to show the extremely slow decomposition rates of common garbage material. In Saskatchewan, landfills are fairly dry and garbage takes a long time to break down. The materials that do break down produce air pollution (methane) and/or water pollution (leachate).

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Lesson 2

Instructional Procedures

1) Review last lesson's findings, especially the idea that our household garbage is what is causing the landfills to fill up.

2) Watch the video On the Road to Zero Waste: Nova Scotia (approx 30 min). This video is at least 10 years old. The first part (4 min 43 seconds) deals with the concept of zero waste, the rest talks about how Nova Scotia is working towards zero waste. Some of the companies no longer exist, you may choose to watch only the first part.

3) Discuss the idea of zero waste. It is based on the idea of reducing the amount of raw materials we use, reusing as much as we can, and composting what we can to reduce the amount of waste we produce. The idea is that everything can be reused and nothing or almost nothing needs to go to waste. From a manufacturer's standpoint it means closing the raw materials loop - using raw materials to produce a product and using the product to produce more raw material.

4) Return to the list of "garbage" from Lesson 1. How could the students use the practices of reducing, reusing, recycling and composting to keep each item from making its way into a landfill and in turn contribute to the zero waste intiative?

5) As a class, find examples of each solid waste management practice. For example Reducing: using canvas bags for groceries rather than plastic; Reusing: using plastic containers (such as margarine or sour cream) for storage in the home; Recycling: collecting glass items to be recycled; Composting: collecting organic material for compost

6) How can these practices increase the lifespan of a landfill or help towards the zero waste intiative? What can you personally do to help? What can your community do?

7)

1. Make a poster showing alternatives to "throwing out" garbage to increase the longevity of a landfill or to promote the zero waste initiative. These can be posted where other students in the school can view them.
2. Write a "letter to the editor" to an imaginary newspaper, pretending to respond to a fictional headline that your community landfill will soon be full and the community needs to find another site. This should include the students' opinions about solid waste management, the zero waste initiative and as many facts as they know to support their statements.

Additional Ideas/Resources

Graph - Impact of waste going to landfill

CalRecycle - School Waste Composition

Other Fun:

Landfill cross word

Landfill word find

Printable PDF version including all worksheets and fun

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