Recycling awareness

I learned a lot about recycling and the amount of trash around our campus and how to prevent it. I learned that people, and even I, have been throwing away items like paper instead of recycling. Before I didn't think it was so important to recycle but I learned that all this trash ends up in landfills. I also learned that there are places like the Davis street transfer center that recycle the items people think as trash. In general I learned that recycling is important and everyone should get involved and start recycling.

At home I have only been doing two of the 4R's. I need to begin composting and reusing at home in order to complete the 4R's. I plan on using both sides of a paper to print stuff on and use the same water bottle multiple times so that I won't have to waste bottles. Also I could make sure to put yard trimmings in the green curbside bin which will be used for composting or make my own compost.

Everyone at Tennyson needs to start recycling and as many people they can about recycling . Many students don't care about recycling and throw away many things that could have been recycled. While there are some recycle bins in certain classrooms, there isn't enough. It's important to have plenty of recycling bins all around campus. Our leadership class has been educating students about recycling through presentations. The goal is to have a recycling bin for plastic bottles and paper in every classroom.

These are the bins that we need in the classrooms:


This is a bin inside a classroom and already there are some bottles:


For more information on recycling go to this website: http://www.stopwaste.org

Davis Street Transfer Center

On April 14 CMMA juniors went to the Davis Street Transfer Center for a field trip. The purpose of the facility is to collect items that normally would go to land fills and recycle them. It serves about 20 Bay Area cities. At the center bottles and plastic are recycled into new plastic materials. Wood is recycled into garden mulch used as a fertilizer for the ground and yard trimmings are made into compost. Also electronics are recycled at the facility.

These are the electronics being recycled:

These are cans and plastic bottles being recycled:

This is the mulch made from wood:


I learned that any material can be recycled at the center. Also you can make money by recycling these items that normally you throw away for free. I also learned recycling is vital to prevent a huge buildup of trash on our planet. I learned that we can reuse these recycled items for our own benefit. Instead of throwing away our old water bottles we can recycle them and then it will be turned into another bottle someone else can use.

The trash we place in the bins either gets burned or is placed in landfills. A landfill is a hole built into the ground in which trash is placed away from it's surroundings. It's basically a storage place for the trash. The landfill for Alameda is located at: 10840 Altamont Pass Road Livermore CA, 94550.

Composting at THS Farm

Composting is a fertilizer made from leaves and twigs, grass clippings, succulent plant matter, old compost, and water. This rich fertilizer can be used to grow organic plants and is better for both the plants and the consumer because no pesticides are used. Compost contains nutrients that are essential for healthy plants and reduces the amount of water used to water the plants. To make a compost pile you have to water an area 4 feet long and 4 feet wide. Then lightly sprinkle old compost, add more water, and then add 2 inches of leaves and twigs. After that add more water, 5 inches of grass clippings, water, 5 inches of succulent plant matter and then repeat the steps until the pile is 4 feet tall.

Waste Audit

For the waste audit students formed groups and gathered trashed from classrooms. Each group was given a bag of trash.


We then weighed the trash, it weighed about five pounds.


We then set up a tarp on the ground and dumped the trash on the tarp.


We then sorted the trash. We created different groups from the trash, this is the food group.


After sorting the trash we weighed the piles. About seventy percent of the trash was paper and plastic materials. The other thirty percent was food scraps.


Classrooms can reduce consumption and disposal of materials by using only the necessary amount and practicing the 4R's. Reduce can be applied to the trash we found by using less paper and not getting things that aren't going to be used. Reuse could be used by using the other side of printed paper for scratch paper or to print something else on it. Recycle can be applied by putting all the recyclable materials, like paper and plastic in the recycling bin. Rot can be used by making compost from all of the food scraps.

The class should focus on diverting paper in the classroom because most of the trash we found consisted of paper and it should have been recycled. In all of the classrooms only a certain amount of paper should be used. Also there should be recycling bins for paper.

Litter Survey

Tennyson students took pictures of areas of the campus before and after lunch then did a survey on the amount of litter. The grassy area between hallways, administration wing, E-hall and quad were all observed. Before lunch there wasn't much litter only a few posters that probably fell down from the wind. Everything seemed nice and clean.

After lunch all areas were littered. There was food scraps, food containers, and other lunch related objects were on the floor. The quad area was the most littered. Here you can see a picture of the quad before lunch and one after lunch. Before lunch there was no litter and the quad looks clean. After lunch you can see there were food containers and bags left on the tables.

This is the quad before lunch

This is the quad after lunch

Me and the 4R's

At home I practice the 4R's by recycling all the recyclable items. We have a separate small bin for these items next to the garbage bin. When the bin gets full we take it out to the curbside bin that the city takes every week. We also practice reduce by not buying useless items and not wasting water and electricity. At home we don't really practice reuse or rot but we do donate old clothes and keep yard trimmings in the green curbside bin. By doing that we help others practice reuse and rot.

SLWRP at THS

I have created this blog as part of the SLWRP which is going on at Tennyson. My purpose is to educate the Tennyson community about waste reduction and motivate them to recycle. We have placed recycling bins around the campus so that the students can recycle. SLWRP is a service learning waste reduction program education people about the 4R's.

The 4R's are: reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot. Reduce is not buying things that are unnecessary and will end up in the garbage in the end. Also using less paper inside the classrooms. Reuse is reusing items instead of throwing them away. Recycling is putting items like paper, plastic, and cardboard in recycling bins. Rot is using items like yard trimmings to make compost that can be used as a fertilizer for our farm plants. Tennyson students need to get involved because it's important to care for the Earth before it's too late.