park street school - waste audit summary from december 11, 2013

Park Street School: Waste Audit Summary

December 11th, 2013

The Gaia Project 270 Rookwood Ave Fredericton, NB E3B 2M2 1 (506) 442-9030 www.thegaiaproject.ca [email protected]

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Park Street School: Waste Audit Summary

A summary of the results from the waste audit conducted on December 11th, 2013.

Copyright © 2013 The Gaia Project. Last updated on January 15th, 2014.

Commercial reproduction of The Gaia Project materials is prohibited without prior written permission

The Gaia Project is a charitable organization whose mission is to empower youth to make informed deci-

sions about energy and its impact on the environment.

We develop projects, provide professional development, technical support and ongoing project support for

teachers and students. Our projects aim to incorporate three key principles, which symbolise our focus on

realistic environmentalism.

1. Data-Informed Decisions – We want students to be able to explain why, and quantify the effect of

each decision they made along the way to their final solution.

2. Economic Assessments – We expect students to be able to assess the cost effectiveness of their so-

lutions, and be able to optimize their projects with limited budgets.

3. Environmental Impact and Lifecycle Assessments – We need students to take a holistic view to their

projects. This means looking at their projects from cradle to grave, as opposed to just examining the

use phase, and acknowledging that greenhouse gas reduction is not the only environmental issue at

stake.

For more information, please visit www.thegaiaproject.ca

The Gaia Project 270 Rookwood Avenue Fredericton, NB E3B 2M2 Canada 1 (506) 442-9030 [email protected]

This project was supported by donations and grants from:

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© The Gaia Project www.thegaiaproject.ca


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Overview

The Gaia Project and Park Street School

collaborated on a audit of the schools’ waste on

December 11th, 2013. Park Street’s Leadership

students, along with Ms. Steeves, have been

working on firstly examining the school’s waste

and subsequently looking for ways to reduce

the school’s overall waste footprint.

An initial audit of the school’s waste was done

on November 21st, 2012—approximately one

year earlier— and this audit was a follow-up.

The process and results are detailed within this

report, including a comparison of the results

from November 2012 to December 2013.

The Process

For the current waste audit, the custodial staff

collected all of the garbage at the school on

December 10th, bagged it and placed it outside

for us.

Sorting categories We decided on 5 sorting categories:

Paper Recyclable plastics Milk Cartons (including recyclable drink

containers) Compost Garbage

Weighing and Sorting After deciding on our 5 sorting categories,

leadership students were provided with gloves,

divided into teams and provided with a kit of

supplies.

Before any bags were opened, the weight of

each bag was recorded so that the starting

amount of waste was known and could be

checked against the final amount.

Groups then opened the bags and sorted its

contents.

We subsequently weighed the contents of each

sorting category at the end of the audit. The

data from each group was entered into an excel

spreadsheet so that we could build a picture of

how much waste the school produces in a day

from each of the 5 sorting categories.

Results

The total weight of waste collected from 1

typical school day was approximately 35 kg.

The estimated total weight from one day in

November 2012 was 52 kg, representing a 17 kg

or 33% reduction over the year since the initial

audit. While there are many variables that

haven’t been controlled for, this 33% reduction

in overall waste may indeed represent a

significant overall reduction in waste at the

school!

December 2013: 35 kg total waste

November 2012: 52 kg total waste

17 kg, or 33% reduction when comparing

November 2012 to December 2013

You can find the actual weight from each

sorting category (our raw data) in Table 1 in the

Appendix. In total, on December 11th, 2013,

we sorted 22% of the total waste, or 8kg.

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The total weight of waste by category can be

seen in the pie chart below.

As a comparison, the percentage per category

from November 21st, 2012’s waste audit is

included below.

Included below is a comparison graph, which

compares the percentage of total waste per

category from November 2012 to December

2013 and highlights the categories that have

increased and decreased.

Finally, the amount of waste collected and

sorted into each category has been projected

forward to provide an estimate of the waste

produced on an annual basis. Assuming 195

school days in a year, Park Street School

produces approximately 6,900 kg of waste

annually. These annual projections can be

found in Table 2 in the Appendix. This is a very

rough estimate.

Assuming 409 students that regularly attend

Park Street School, each student produces

approximately 0.1 kg of waste per day, and 17

kg annually.

Summary

Through the process of measuring how much

and what type of waste Park Street School

produces, it was discovered that on December

11th, 2013:

40% of the waste could have been

recycled. This includes paper, cardboard,

milk cartons & other drink containers,

and recyclable plastic.

47% of the waste was compostable

material

13% of the waste was actual garbage that

needed to be there.

December 11, 2013

November 21, 2012


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Paper Comparing the amount of paper in the garbage

from November 2012 (17%) to December 2013

(15%), there is only a small difference (2%

decrease).

From this waste audit comparison, we can

assume that, on average, between 15-20% of

the total waste is paper.

Recyclable Plastics There was a 5% increase in the amount of

recyclable plastic seen in the current audit from

December 2013 (10%) as compared to

November 2012 (5%). This could be due to a

true increase, due to natural variance, or to

slight differences in sorting technique.

It would be safe to conclude that approximately

5-10% of Park Street’s waste is recyclable

plastics.

Compost In November 2012, compost represented 39%

of the total waste, and 47% in December 2013.

Compost likely reliably represents between 40-

50% of the school’s total waste.

Since compost represents about half of the

school’s total waste, it could be an area to focus

efforts on significantly reducing the school’s

overall waste footprint.

Garbage Between 13% (December 2013) and 22%

(November 2012) of the school’s total waste is

garbage, and actually needed to go to the

landfill. If the school was to recycle, reduce and

compost, there is the potential to reduce the

school’s overall annual waste from 6,900 kg to

~1,200 kg. This would mean that per student,

each student would only generate 3kg of waste

at the school annually, compared to the ~17kg

produced annually today.

Summary

The Gaia Project was very impressed with the

sustainability initiatives under way at Park

Street School, and is excited to see that waste

at the school has potentially decreased by 17%.

Congratulations on a job well done, Park Street

School! You definitely ‘got green’!

Contact Us

The Gaia Project is very interested in supporting

waste reduction and other energy-related

initiatives at Park Street School in any that we

can. The students, staff and administration at

Park Street School are leaders, and I look

forward to discussing this report with the

school soon!

Vanessa Paesani, Executive Director [email protected] www.thegaiaproject.ca 1 (506) 442-9030

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Table 1. Weight (kg) per sorting category—represents 22% of total waste from day

Table 2. Estimated annual weight (kg) per sorting class

Appendix

Group Paper (kg) Recyclable Plastic (kg)

Milk Cartons (kg)

Compost (kg)

Garbage (kg) Total (kg)

1 0.7 0.7 0.8 2.6 0.3 5.0

2 0.6 0.1 0.4 1.2 0.8 3.0

Total 1.2 0.8 1.2 3.8 1.0 8.1

Sorting Class Weight of Waste

Examined (kg) Total Estimated

Daily Weight (kg) Annual (kg)

Paper 1.24 5.4 1060

Recyclable Plastic 0.78 3.4 670

Milk Cartons 1.19 5.2 1020

Compost 3.82 16.8 3270

Garbage 1.03 4.5 880

Total 8.1 35.3 6900

park street school - waste audit summary from december 11, 2013

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