8+Science+4+Lindsey's+MSW+Project

Comparing the Amount of Waste Using Reusable Products in Advisory
The purpose of the project was to test MSW, municipal solid waste. MSW is produced by businesses and households. Caroline, Mason, and I tested to see if reusable products will reduce the amount of waste in advisories. This project helps both the environment and could potentially save money because they are not buying cups anymore. Many people produce a lot of waste that can be reduced in many ways, and by reducing the amount of waste people produce we can save our environment. Using reusable products in advisory is one simple step towards saving our environment and was not hard to do. Reusable products will reduce the amount of trash because the advisies are not constantly using paper cups and throwing them away, instead they have one cup specifically for them. If there are reusable products in each advisory, the amount of trash produced will decrease. **
 * I. Introduction:

-Scale -Trash cans -36 Reusable cups -6 trash bags -Labels -Sharpies -Signs
 * II. Materials:**


 * || **Safety Concerns** || **Guidelines** ||
 * 1. || Germs in trash cans. || 15 ||
 * 2. || Sharp objects in trash bags. || 20,25,26, 39 ||

1. Gather materials. 2. Place a new trash bin in Mrs. Rich, Mr. Keilty, and Mrs. Preiss' room (Feb. 20). 3. Label the bins for advisory only. 4. Wait three days, not collecting the trash (Feb. 21, 22, 23). 5. On the third day, collect and weigh each bin (Feb. 23). 6. Record data. 7. Place bins back. 8. Label the cups with the advisory members names (Feb. 24) 9. Give each advisory the reusable cups (Feb. 24). 10. Wait three days, without collecting trash (Feb. 24, 25, 26). 11. Weigh the trash again after replacing old products (Feb. 26). 12. Record data. 13. Compare data before the reusable products and after to see if the reusable products reduce the amount of trash (Feb. 26).
 * III. Procedure:**

Control Group-** Weight of trash before reusable products Dependent Variable-** Weight of the trash
 * Experimental Group- Weight of trash after reusable products
 * Independent Variable- Amount of reusable materials in advisory

My graph shows that the amount of waste was reduced in two out of the three advisories. In Mrs. Richardson's advisory the amount of trash did not reduce because in their advisory they didn't use the cups and didn't have an advisory lunch. I believe that our experiment would have been most effective with advisory lunches. In Mr. Keilty's advisory the amount of trash reduced a lot because he had an advisory lunch without reusable products and then with the cups he didn't have another advisory lunch. The Preiss advisory was accurate in their data, they didn't have any advisory lunches and kept up with the bins.
 * IV. Data:**
 * || **Weight of trash before Reusable Products** || **Weight of trash after Reusable products** ||
 * **Mrs. Richardson's Advisory** || .5 lbs. || .7 lbs. ||
 * **Mr. Keilty's Advisory** || 2.8 lbs. || 1 lb. ||
 * **Mrs. Preiss' Advisory** || 1 lb. || .3 lbs. ||
 * V. Analysis:**

My hypothesis was supported and not supported because two of three advisories waste decreased. There were fluctuations in the data that would make our hypothesis not supported. The hypothesis was supported in the Preiss advisory because they kept up with the bins. Some errors or problems with our experiment were that the Richardson advisory didn't keep up with the bins and didn't provide us with accurate data. This would be a human error because the advisory messed it up. Our group didn't think about the possible mistakes before coming up with the idea. There was many flaws to our procedure that have effected our results such as not having the janitors collect the specific bins, and in the Richardson advisory they did collect it on the first day. This would be a human error because we should have told the janitor before not to collect it. The challenges we had with collecting data included communicating with the advisors and advisories, and interfering with advisory lunches. Solutions to these issues may have been to give every advisory reusable cups, to collect more accurate data. Also if there was an advisory lunch before they should have one after, or have none at all. We could have communicated better with the advisors sooner, like a week before we started to collect or gone and talked with the actual advisory to explain our project. A solution to our conclusions would be that the reusable cups do reduce the amount of waste for advisory lunches, but maybe not so much in advisory snacks.
 * VI. Conclusion**