You may be aware that people throw away a lot of garbage every day. Getting rid of garbage is a very important issue, and you will investigate it in this activity.    

It is estimated that every day, each Canadian citizen discards about 2.2 kg of garbage. Much of this garbage ends up in landfills. Landfills are sites that have been developed to prevent waste materials from harming the environment.

It is difficult to create new landfills. They are expensive to build, and many people do not want landfills near their homes. When landfills do become full, they are sealed to prevent toxic chemicals from entering the ground water.

What Can Be Done?

In Lesson 4 of the first theme of this course, you learned about waste packaging. Think about your own family. Do you use more concentrated products that require less packaging or more ready-made products that result in more packaging? When you get takeout food from a restaurant, how much packaging is thrown into the garbage?

The images below give us some information about what can be done to reduce the garbage we throw away. You may already know about these methods and may be practising them at home and at school.

Glass jars and plastic bags can be reused, as can other products, such as print materials.

 

Composting food wastes can reduce the amount of garbage produced.

 

Glass, cans, juice boxes, paper products, and plastic can all be recycled. 

 

 Remember, as well, that some waste items are biodegradable while others are nonbiodegradable. In Lesson 4, you learned about these kinds of products. Below is a review of this lesson.

Biodegradable or Nonbiodegradable

When you look at the environment around you, do you see things that are biodegradable? Biodegradable means "able to decompose or decay."

Items that are biodegradable are helpful to our environment. Over time, these items break down into smaller and smaller pieces and eventually into particles that occur naturally in the environment.

Paper, vegetable peelings, and natural fibres are biodegradable; they decompose rather quickly. Other items such as glass and plastic are considered nonbiodegradable because they do not break down. Such items are better recycled or reused instead of sending them to the landfills where they will last for centuries, if not forever.