A Garbage Survey		

People deposit millions of tons of trash into landfills each year. In communities around the country the landfills are getting filled up with items that could be recycled. Recycling saves landfill space and can reduce the need for additional natural resources. You will determine how much landfill space your family can save and how many pounds of solid waste can be recovered by removing all recyclable materials that may be thrown out with the regular trash.

Procedure:  Record your results in the table below
1.	Determine the volume of trash your kitchen trashcan or similar trash container can contain.  
a.	Volume of Rectangular Prism:  	
b.	Volume of a Cylinder:			
Since trash containers are not always regular polygons, your measurements don’t have to be exact but should give a good approximation.
2.	When the trash container is full calculate the amount of trash and recyclables.
a.	Weigh both the empty trash container and empty container you will use to hold the recyclable trash.  This weight will be subtracted from your later measurements to get a close approximation of the weight of trash in each container.
b.	Weigh the trash container with it full of trash and determine the weight of only the trash.
c.	Remove recyclable items in place them in a separate container
d.	Calculate the remaining volume of non-recyclable trash in the container.
Note:  Your new measurements are estimates based on how high you think the trash level rises inside the container.
e.	Calculate the volume of recyclable trash your removed
f.	Weigh the trash container with only non-recyclable trash in it and determine the new trash weight.
g.	Weigh the container with the recyclable trash in it and determine the amount of recycled trash in it.
3.	Determine the amount of landfill space your family would use without recycling each day and over one year.
4.	Determine the amount of landfill space your family would save with recycling each day and over one year. 

Container	Empty Weight	Full Weight	Yearly weight deposited from this container	Weight with recyclables removed	Weight Saved 	Weight saved each year from this container	Container Volume	Volume with recyclables removed	Volume Saved	Landfill space (volume) saved over one year	
Trash											
	A Garbage Survey