Another group from Terri Maas Anger’s classes at W.B. Saul High School looked at recycling and landfills. Working in the first section of the recycling group were Alicia, Maria, Tyreek, Jazmin. According to their research, each ton of paper recycled can save 17 trees, 800 gallons of oil, 300 cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy and 70,000 gallons of water. Armed with this information, they lobbied visitors to the school fair to sign a petition in support of the Recycle Now campaign to increase Philadelphia recycling rates. They are forwarding these signatures to the Mayor to try to move the city forward on a successful recycling program that rewards people who recycle with store coupons.
Chantal, Megan and Julia made up the landfill group and they did a presentation on litter at the Spring Garden Elementary School. This group played a game to see who could pick up the most “trash”, using sticky notes to represent the different kinds of trash. When they returned to the school the next week to follow up, they were very pleased to learn that the students they worked with had stopped littering!
Angelique, Deja and Midori studied and created a poster board presentation on the Tulleytown landfill along the Delaware River. The presentation focused on increasing awareness about the more than 3000 landfills in the U.S. Many landfills, according to Deja seep pollutants into ground water and streams, lakes and rivers.