Redfish School’s grade 5 class has been investigating waste. What happens to all that stuff we throw “away”? How much of our waste can be diverted from our local landfill by reducing, reusing, repairing, refusing, rethinking and recycling? We took a tour to find out more!
Students discovered that we can stop small appliances, electronics, light bulbs, chemicals, paint and refundable drink containers from entering the landfill- with one easy stop at the Nelson Leaf’s Bottle Depot!
At the RDCK Transfer Stations Mrs. G’s students witnessed the careful management of materials. Here resources are sorted and diverted from the landfill helping to reduce our need to extract new raw materials and prolonging the life of our resources and landfill.
At the landfill site Stan, manager of operations enthusiastically detailed the art of building a landfill. We even got a chance to see the machinery at work- compacting couches, chairs and electronics and to see many birds attracted to the site. Once buried in the landfill, our stuff is preserved forever leaving future generations to live with our trash. With space for only another 50 years’ worth of waste at the Oostechenia Landfill, we all realized how important it is to reduce what we throw away by making smart consumer choices, by reusing and fixing items, and by composting and recycling.
Our recyclables from blue bags, classrooms and RDCK bins all meet at the Brilliant Waste Management Facility. Here we saw that these resources are compacted and shipped off to be re-sorted in Spokane, Kelowna and Vancouver before being transported for recycling in far off lands.
It was an eye opening adventure into our local waste management. The best thing we can do is REDUCE the amount of garbage and recyclable materials we generate in the first place! Way to go Grade 5!
