Environmental Project Data Collection

For my global citizenship class, we got in small groups to do an environmental projects. My group decided to watch the recycling bins in the library at the University of Utah to see if people really used them or not.

There is a bin for trash, one for metal, one for plastic, and one for mixed paper. For data collection, we used two graphs per day. One graph received a tally mark every time someone correctly used the bins, and the other received a tally mark for every incorrect use of the bins. We sat in 4 different locations in the library on 4 different days and 4 different times of day. We observed each day until we had seen 50 people use the bins.

What we noticed, even after the first day, is that people mainly use the 'trash' bin for everything they throw away, even if it's recyclable. On the first three days of data collection, the incorrect use of the bins outweighed the correct use. On the last day of data collection, there was slightly more correct usage of the bins.

Recycling is really important for many reasons. One is that recycling helps reduce the pollution caused by waste. Waste can destroy entire ecosystems and habitats which really isn't fair to our animal friends. It also uses a ton of energy to make things from raw materials, therefore recycling helps us preserve our natural resources. Not to mention, we are running out of room to put all of our waste!

I think it is really important for students at the U to learn about the benefits of recycling and why the separate bins are even in the library in the first place. Lectures or flyers (on recycled paper, of course ;) ) about recycling could be made accessible to students in order to improve recycling rates. There are 30,000 students at the U. Imagine how much waste we are producing that could be recycled!

http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/importance.html

Clean Air Rally

So I went to my first rally ever. It was regarding what can be done to promote clean air. We all made signs and held them up. Some phrases from the signs that I especially liked were "having a bad air day?" and "be part of the solution, not part of the pollution". We had masks that said "Got air? I don't." Some people wanted to take pictures of us. All around it was pretty fun. I liked hearing the speeches. Although I have no idea who was speaking, there was one man that was pretty funny and I liked what he said. One of the funniest things that he said was "I asked the legislature what we could do about the inversion, and one of them told me to pray for a storm. I did pray alright -- for a new legislature!" I thought that was really funny and clever.

I was impressed by how many people showed up. It was inspiring to see so many people who care about this issue. I also liked that people used this event to talk about other important issues. For example, I signed a petition that was about using more renewable energy resources.

At first, I was pretty confused about what we were trying to accomplish by rallying at the Capitol. I think it was so that our representatives can see how many people care about this issue. Breathing our air on a red air day is the equivalent to smoking a half a pack of cigarettes, and that's just not okay. I don't smoke because I don't want those negative side effects, and it's a shame that I'm getting them anyway just by breathing.

Anyway, I hope that changes can be made soon. I would love to see some better and more reliable public transportation options. I would love to see RioTinto pay retribution for breaking the laws regarding how much earth can be moved per day. I hope that we can make the necessary changes to respect our planet.