Student worksheet

Thought-starter: At home what percentage of your waste is recycled?

Step 1

The world of recycling aluminium cans

This table has the percentage recycling rates of aluminium cans for 11 countries for the years 2002 and 2010.

1. In the table above calculate the percentage improvement for each of the 11 countries (hint minus the percentage for 2002 from 2010).

2. Which country has the highest recycling rate of aluminium can for 2010?

3. Which country has the greatest improvement in recycling rates?

4. Produce a graph of recycling rates for the 11 countries. The graph should go from the highest recycling rate to the lowest.

5. How many countries on the graph have a higher rate of recycling compared with Australia?

6. How many countries have a lower recycling rate compared with Australia?

In some countries people pay a deposit on the aluminium cans, steel cans, bottles and jars when they buy their drinks and food in this form of packaging. They get a refund for the empty cans and bottles when it is returned to the shop. Often people will collect cans that have been placed in the rubbish or as litter to get the refund. Australia has one of the highest overall recycling rates for all materials.

7. Looking at the graph, guess which counties might charge deposits and give refunds for aluminium cans?

Step 2

Recycling and greenhouse gases

Recycling aluminium facts

To produce one tonne of aluminium produces 16.6 tonnes of greenhouse gases
To recycle one tonne of aluminium produces 0.7 tonnes of greenhouse gases
To produce one tonne of aluminium requires 183Kl (kilolitres) of water
To recycle one tonne of aluminium requires 1Kl (kilolitres) of water

8. Write a formula for calculating percentage (hint the amount you need to find the percentage for divided by the total times 100)

9. Calculate the percentage of greenhouse gas that is not released by recycling aluminium (show your workings).

10. How close is this reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with the 95% in the reduction in energy use?

11. Calculate the percentage of water savings when recycling aluminium.

Step 3

Beverage container survey

Survey your class about their preference for what they prefer to drink from when they are not at home. This can be done by a raise of hands. Students can only choose one. They can choose between:

Disposable glass Bottle
Aluminium can
Disposable plastic bottle
Normal glass
Reusable sports drinking bottle

12. Fill in the table below.

Students preference X 100 = %

Total number of students

13. Which beverage container is preferred by most the students?

14. Which beverage container was least preferred?

Step 4

Comparing savings from home recycling

This table provides information about recycling from NSW homes. The first column has information about the percentage of different types of waste being recycled. It has been measured using weight. The second column has been calculated for an entire year. It is a measure of the amount of greenhouse gases that have not been produced because of recycling. The measure is for tonnes of greenhouse gases for carbon dioxide.

15. Which waste material has the highest weight in the recycle bins?

16. Which waste material has the lowest weight in the recycle bins?

17. Calculate the percentages for the third column so the amount of greenhouse gases can be compared.

18. Use a spreadsheet application to produce a pie graph of the weight of material recycled and a second pie graph comparing the percentage of greenhouse gas reductions.

19. Use the data on this sheet to design a postcard to show the benefits of recycling. Think about including a graph to explain how recycling benefits our environment.

These Planet Ark resources were developed by Cool.org with funding from the Alcoa Foundation.

National Recycling Week - Recycling in Australia

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