Waste Audits!

What is a waste audit? Officially, it’s where we determine the composition of the trash in a given place…in my case, the high school, middle school, and one of the elementary schools. But really, it’s just a bunch of people wearing $4 HAZMAT suits digging through the day’s lunch and sorting it into piles. I’ve done two of them in as many weeks, and I think I’m getting pretty good at it. Carolyn Dann, one of my project advisers, is amazing at this stuff. She’s done waste audits at other schools (big surprise, my stick-in-the-mud school system is one of the last ones in the area to do composting), and has all the materials. We had tarps, signs, buckets, scales, gloves, everything.

So what we did for the first waste audit was this: immediately after school on a Wednesday, CM, LD, Carolyn, my troop leader, my mom (also a troop leader) and my sister (I have no idea why she volunteered to help dig through garbage but okay) all got together to spread tarps out by the back door of the high school. Since the high and middle schools are connected—it’s a small district—we got the garbage bags from both cafeterias and lined them up, ready for dumping. The process was a little messy at first; you should see all the scribbles in my journal. (Maybe I’ll scan it in… oh my I’m getting technical here!)

So for all of you people who want to know the process, I’ll describe it for you. We did the three bags from the high school first. Step one: weigh the full trash bags. If you have a crappy bathroom scale like we did, get someone who’s not shy to hold the bags and subtract their body weight from the total. My sister is a twig, so we made her hold the leaky trash bags, and after subtracting her measly body mass from all three weighings we totaled about 69 lbs of trash. Then we dumped all that delicious cafeteria refuse onto the tarps, threw on our white body suits, and sorted everything into four groups: compostable, recycling, liquids, and the leftover waste that actually has to go to a landfill. In the end, we figured out that of the 69 lbs. of “trash”, 38 lbs. were compostable; 4.4 lbs. were recyclables that hadn’t made their way into the recycling bins; 13 lbs. were liquids that should have been dumped, and only 17 lbs. were actual trash.

We did the same thing for the middle school. Of the whopping 106 lbs. in the garbage bags, 58 lbs. were compost; 9 lbs. were recyclable; 19 lbs. were liquid; 20 lbs. were actual trash. Also, a disturbing amount of middle school kids seem to go through strange rituals with their food, and I think that there are some legitimate psychological issues that need to be addressed. I’m pretty sure the kids who stuff French fries in their chocolate milk bottles, wrap the whole thing up, and toss it in the trash with the other various creations are practicing to create future Molotov cocktails. Either that or they’re somehow summoning the dead, you never know with 13 year olds. Middle school is freaking scary—it’s like one long episode of The X-Files. I’ll never be a middle school teacher, or for that matter, a middle school custodian.

A week later we did one of the more cooperative elementary schools, and of the 71 lbs. of disgustingness, 49 lbs. were compost; 1 lb. was recycling; 7.5 lbs. was liquid; and there were 15 lbs. of trash. In the elementary school they use Styrofoam trays instead of reusable or paper ones, and they use non-compostabe/ non-recyclable milk cartons instead of milk bottles like the other schools. That’s why the recycling was so negligible—and it kind of infuriates me. Come on people, aren’t you supposed to be teaching kids how to care for the environment? Styrofoam is officially the bane of my existence thanks to this project. Also, in case you were wondering, elementary school kids never finish the grapes and carrots you pack them. They put them in the pudding they never consume and toss the whole mess in the trash among the uneaten pizza and unopened milk cartons.

And with that, I must say goodbye. All this trash talk is making me hungry.

LOL okay that was gross sorry.