Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink

Text by Amalyah Leader
Photos by Elizabeth Barnes except as noted

After months of collecting and organizing our recycling on the Pop Wuj roof, we finally hauled it over to the recycling center.

The costales (bags) were filled with recycling collected from the school, students, or teachers' homes, and students from the Family Support Center. With the help of two Pop Wuj students, we carried all the costales down from the roof and onto the street. Seeing all the costales laid out in front of the building, it was an impressive display.

Photo by Amy Scheuren

Photo by Amy Scheuren

As soon as the truck driver showed up we threw the bags onto the truck and then off we went up the road to Cantel. 

 

Photo  by Amy Scheuren

Getting to ride in the back of the truck seemed like a nice opportunity to take a nap.  :)

After arriving to the recycling center we weighed all of our materials, separating plastic, glass, carbboard, metal, and aluminum cans.

We recycled a total of:

184 lbs of plastic

75 lbs of glass

6 lbs of aluminum

8 lbs of other metal (tin)

12 lbs of cardboard

Weighing the glass

Do you know how long each type of waste takes to decompose?

Paper: 2-6 months
Fabric: 6 to 12 months
Cigarettes: 5 years
Candy gum: 5 years
Wood: 13 year
Metal: 450 years
Nylon: more than 30 years
Aluminum Cans: 300 to 500 years
Plastic: 800 years
Glass: 1 millon years
Tires: Unknown/indefinite

It's important to make choices and educate ourselves about where our waste goes, how much we use, and what we do with it.