Micro Plastics Project notes and developing results.
ROLLING NOTES - project development
March 22, 2024
...based on what the year 8 classes have told us over the past week and my observations around school -- thinking that perhaps we could put together a video that documents the journey of plastics through our Rosmini environmen
show the
--how plastic comes into Rosmini (from students/teachers homes, tuck shop, grocery store stops, mail, packets, etc) (perhaps just a focus on students)
--how plastic is used at school -- candy, energy bars, etc.
--how disposed (in year 8 informal survey, an average of 10 students per class admitted dropping at least one piece of rubbish (identified as plastic) on the ground during that school day.
--show plastic wrapping on the ground, and what happens to it -- mown into small pieces, sun deterioration -- wound blow, water born down drains etc.
-- we could ask Ms Snowsill if the ECO club could do another rubbish inventory, and we do a drain inventory (there are filters that fit over the drains)
--calculate how much plastic is put into our environment each day - week -- year
-- show what the outcomes are to human health, animal/plant health, oceans, etc.
Most students only see the plastic bag and 'turtles seabirds' link -- not in their backyard mindset.
We have been curious as to the origin, type and disposal of plastic in our school, so we took one days rubbish and sorted out the plastic.
The total school wide rubbish collect for Monday August 26, 2024 was sorted. WE remo=ved the food, paper, glassd and aluminium for the rubbish and seperated out the plastics for further sorting and counting.
We counted out 3,570 items of plastic in that days rubbish -- representing a 61% increase over the previous inventory from 4 years ago.
-- 791 items were 'hard plastics' -- water/juice/softdrink and noodle/sushi containers.
-- the rest is 'soft plastics'. (Note: 592 - Glad Wrap, ziplock bags and plastic bags) chip, lollies, biscuits/crackers/snack packs, etc). This category is what makes up the majority of what is dropped on the ground.
Results are being tabulated for presentation and the gathered plastic is being stored for use in presentations.
