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What's The Best Waste Disposal Method?

What's The Best Waste Disposal Method?
SubjectToClimate

Written By Teacher: Meighan Hooper

Meighan has been an arts educator and instructional designer since 2007. Originally from Ontario, Canada, she began teaching internationally in the Middle East and Asia in 2013. Meighan has designed programs of study based on a variety of curriculum including Canadian, American standards-based, Primary Years Program (IB), and British National curriculum.

Teaching students about waste disposal is a great way to connect classroom habits to broader environmental impacts. Start by encouraging students to think about where items in the classroom bin and recycling go after they’re tossed—this simple question sparks curiosity and discussion. Highlight that the most effective way to tackle waste is by reducing production altogether, as it conserves resources and minimizes the overall waste to be managed. For middle school, try the "Food Waste Lesson Plan", which explores the connection between food waste and climate change. For elementary students, the "Recycling Lesson" lesson introduces the concepts of reducing, reusing, and recycling through engaging activities. These lessons make it easy to engage students of all ages in meaningful conversations about waste and climate change.

MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

Written By: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program, a part of MIT Climate HQ, provides the public with nonpartisan, easy-to-understand, and scientifically-grounded information on climate change and its solutions.

Every day, the U.S. creates about 4.9 lbs of trash per person. In 2018, this amounted to 292 million tons of trash.1 But what sort of impact does all this trash have on greenhouse gas emissions? The situation isn’t good, says Jonathan Krones, Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Boston College. “There is no sustainable scenario in which we consume a lot of materials, particularly single-use materials,” Krones says, “and rely on disposal processes to manage the waste and mitigate its effect on human and environmental health.”

Currently, we have two major ways to deal with non-recyclable waste: we can put it into a landfill or burn it in an incinerator. Burning waste may seem like a better way to permanently get rid of it—once the trash is burned, it appears to be “gone.” However, burning trash simply transforms it from a solid to a gas (and creates ash that must later be landfilled). When the trash contains hazardous materials (like some metals), this gas can be toxic. When it’s a material that’s mostly made up of carbon (like plastic), the gas will contain CO2, which contributes to global warming.

On the other hand, burning waste also releases energy. In a “waste-to-energy plant,” this energy can be used to make electricity, replacing some electricity that normally comes from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.


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