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DECOMPOSITION OF WASTE
Objectives:
- Do all wastes decompose at the same rate? Let students find out.
- Students will monitor change over time to discover which items are degradable and how long they take to degrade.
Requirement:
- 8-10 different types of wastes (paper/ recycled paper/ glass/ vegetables peels/ fruit peels/ pencil shavings/ tetra pak/ aluminium foil/ metal cans/ E-waste/ thermocol/ card board box/ plastic bag/ cotton thread/ etc
- A small area where the different types of wastes can be buried underground/ in the absence of space, few pots or other containers could also be used to serve the purpose
- Digging material
- Notebooks and pencils
Time required:
- 15 – 20 min once a week, over a period of 1 month or more
- 15 – 20 min for introduction and recap
Background
When we have finished cooking, eating, completing a school assignment, or even shopping there is always something to throw away. Most of these wastes go into the dustbins and finally ends up in the landfill. Have we ever paid attention to how long it takes for some of these wastes to degrade? And whether all wastes degrade? Teachers could initiate a discussion with students about the different waste types and get students to think about how long it takes for different wastes to degrade. Students could then conduct a short study over a period of a month or longer to understand the time taken for different waste types to degrade.
Procedure:
1. | Students could do this activity either individually or in groups |
2. | Students could bring different types of wastes |
3. | The waste should be weighed and its weight recorded. In the worksheet, the students could also draw how the waste looks at this stage |
4. | After the above observations have been made, students need to identify and bury this waste a few inches below the ground. All types of wastes should preferably be buried at the same depth. |
5. | Use markers/ flags to identify each piece of waste which has been buried away. |
6. | After 1-2 weeks dig up the waste and study how it looks. If it is possible to weigh the same, measurements could be taken and recorded. The worksheet could be used to record how the waste visually looks. |
7 | After making observations, cover up the waste again. |
8 | The above observations could be made at weekly intervals over a period of one month |
9 | Discuss the final observations with the class |
10 | Through the entire process of monitoring, remember to keep the soil moist |
Waste Decomposition Worksheet
Our waste team comprises of | …………………………………………………………….. | |
Our waste type is | …………………………………………………………….. | |
Initial weight of our waste | …………………………………………………………….. | |
This is how our waste looked prior to burying |
|
Waste timeline | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 |
How our waste looks | |||||
If it was possible to weigh our waste, this is how much it weighed |


RECYCLING CENTRE AT SCHOOL
Objectives:
- To introduce children to different types of wastes generated by our daily activities
- To enable children to differentiate between waste types – biodegradable and non-biodegradable
- To enable children to segregate different waste types
- To initiate a recycling collection centre in the school
Requirement:
- Different coloured/ marked bins
- Sufficient storage space to collect and store waste (at least for short durations)
- Weighing machine to measure the collected waste
- Record book to maintain updated data for total amount of waste collected
Time required:
- Annual
- Depending on quantity of waste collected, weighing of waste could be undertaken once weekly, fortnightly, and monthly or could vary based on the school requirement.
Background
Tell children what is meant by recycling. Introduce them to different types of waste which can be recycled and whom the same could be handed over to. Emphasize on children the need to segregate waste prior to disposal for a successful recycling initiative. Children could be told about the benefits of recycling which include better management of resources (some materials like plastics, papers and some components of e waste could either be recycled or reused), reduced quantities of wastes being sent to the landfill sites from doing so, among others.
Procedure:
- Introduce children to different types of waste.
- Help them to understand that some of this waste is biodegradable and other not
- Talk to your colleagues and management regarding the importance of the waste segregation collection drive that you want to initiate with students
- To get children to collect different types of non biodegradable waste and bring it to the school collection centre
- Depending on what the school decides to collect you could initiate the collection of one/ more of the following
- To get children to collect this waste in a segregated manner at the school.
- Appropriate arrangement will have to be made for sufficient number of bins for the collection of these items and storage space for temporarily storing this collected waste at the school
- Identify an agency or rag pickers who could collect this waste from your school
- Regularly route out the collected waste from your school to the identified person/ agency.
- It is importantly to regularly document how much and what type of waste is being collected by the students.
- Children could then communicate through different means to the rest of the school about the progress of work on this initiative – younger children could be engaged in making posters and older children could keep a track of the data collected and maybe depict the same in the form of charts/ bar graphs, etc.



Segregated wastes collected and stored by some schools prior to disposal.
RECYCLED ART MOSAIC FOR SCHOOL WALL
Objectives:
- To inspire children to create an art form out of recycled waste.
Requirement:
- Different types of wastes
- Bottle caps
- CDs
- Other identified wastes
- Weighing machine to measure the collected waste (this could be a valuable bit of information to project towards the end of the completion of the project)
- Record book to maintain updated data for total amount of waste collected
Time required:
- For conceptualizing of idea
- For execution of the idea (this could be distributed across the school calendar year)
Background
Craft has the unique ability to involve many different areas of the brain. Craft activities can help with memory and attention span as they help different processes including processing, creative thinking and problem-solving abilities. The different types of wastes collected by children could be transformed into a creative craft form. A mural would be a good idea as it could help brighten up the school wall. This would also be a very creative way to show how waste could be best utilized.

Procedure
- Children and teachers could conceptualise a creative art form they would like to put together.
- They could then selective use different types of wastes collected to put together a mural. Size of this could vary depending on the amount of wastes the school has been able to collect to do the same and the availability of space in the school.
- Subsequent to this discussion, provide different books to students from which they would have to search and cut out pictures which also contain uses of water or show the different states of water in different seasons
- These pictures could be sorted out according to the different seasons.
- The completed mural can then be exhibited at the school.

Extension and Variation:
Students from the South Street Elementary School , Newark, New Jersey, USA collected over 5,000 bottle caps from their local community and arranged these caps into an eco-friendly 8-foot by 12-foot mural. The project was displayed for sometime at the Newark Museum. The project provided students with hands-on knowledge about conservation and encouraged them to become responsible global citizens.