Complete a Personal Waste Audit.
Week 3: Lab Test, Results, and Discussion
This week you will complete a Personal Waste Audit. Two tables have been provided in this template to assist you in this process. For one 24-hour period collect all of your trash. Record and categorize your waste based on the data fields in the tables. Feel free to leave off any items that you feel are of a personal nature, but be as honest as possible in recording your data. Submit the following tables of completed data as an uploaded document to the lab dropbox for Week 3.
Helpful Definitions:
· Material: What is your trash made out of? Categories include plastic, paper/cardboard, food waste, metal, mixed (made of a variety of materials that cannot be easily separated, ex. a battery), cloth/fiber, or other (used for more specific materials).
· Disposal Method: How did you throw away your trash? Did you put it in a trash can, recycle it, or use another disposal method (ex. Garbage disposal)? Did you plan to reuse it?
· Alternative Method: What is another way you could have disposed of your trash or prevented the need for trash? Examples including recycling the material, choosing not to use that item (ex. No longer use straws for drinking), or finding a non-waste-generating alternative such as reusing, donating, re-purposing or composting.
· Weight in Lbs.: To the best of your ability, weigh your trash in each category and as a whole. The total weight in Lbs. for all your trash will be used in the next step of this lab, so it needs to be accurate. You can weigh trash by standing on a scale, recording your weight, then standing on the scale holding the trash, recording the new weight, and subtracting the first recorded weight from the second.
· Percentage of Total Count: This data point is found by counting up the number of items of a particular material you threw away and dividing it by the total number of items you threw away, then multiplying the total by 100.
· Trash vs. Recycled: For this area of the chart, indicate how many items of that material type you threw away and how many items of that material type you recycled.
NOTE: You will not be able to participate in future weeks of this assignment until you have submitted and received a grade for this portion of the project.
View your Week 3 project rubric.
Answer preview to Complete a Personal Waste Audit.
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