Last Thursday, the environmental team of my school decided to make an experiment. With the help of our environmental teacher, who was very helpful, we searcher two of our schools rubbish and recycle bins.

Some years ago, the environmental department of my school decided to put recycling bins, along with the rubbish ones that already existed, all around our school, to promote recycling among youth. The bins have an appropriate sign to show that they are used for recycling. This action has led many of my fellow students to consider recycling, not only at school, but also at home. However, we have noticed that many students do not show interest in it, and they do not throw the recyclable waste in the proper bin.

The experiment that we decided to do is to take the waste out of one recycling bin and one conventional bin, to see how well waste is distributed, and whether each bin contains right waste.

We took some transparent bags, and we separated the waste, putting the organic waste in one bag and the recyclable waste in the other.


Recycle and Conventional bins


Separating wastes


The results!

We came up with the following very interesting results:

- The rubbish bin contained 3 kg of waste, while the recycle bin contained only 0.7 kg totally.

- In the rubbish bin, there was 1.5 kg of non-recyclable waste, but also 1.5 kg of recyclable waste!

- In the recycle bin there was 0.5 kg of recyclable material, and 0.2 kg of organic waste.

- In the conventional bin there was 3 TIMES MORE recyclable waste than in the recycle bin.

It is really worthwhile to observe that so many young people do not pay the necessary attention towards the important task of recycling. On the other hand, that makes us understand that we need further work to motivate our fellow students to the right use of the bin.

After we examined the matter, we came up to the conclusion that we have to plan to raise awareness, not just once, but repetitively, till a significant change appears in the way our fellow students recycle.
This will be achieved through presentations and posters, as well as discussions with our own schoolmates.

We are looking forward to observe the results in our work!