Garbage

Find up-to-date facts and figures about trash and recycling in the United States from the EPA. The National Overview has graphs and charts that may be helpful in the classroom. Take a look at statistics that present the current state of recycling in the United States. For a global perspective, see updated world waste statistics and the most recent waste report from the World Bank.

Brush up on your knowledge of knowledge of garbage with Landfills and Recycling from How Stuff Works.

Learn more about the waste industry and follow the life cycle of trash.

SciShow videos deliver a lot of information in a concise, interesting format. Take a look at The Science of Garbage and Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

A refresher course in the 5R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle, refuse, rot) will help you prepare to teach students about improving waste management in their own lives.

Learn more about composting organic trash at the Exploratorium.

Resources from PBS LearningMedia contain videos, lesson plans, standards alignment, interactives and/or teaching guides.

Martha Speaks is a collection of video stories and interactive vocabulary exercises for grades K-2. The subjects of garbage, recycling, and individual choices are addressed in A Tale of Two Soup Cans (with accompanying lesson plan) and Waste Not, Want Not (with lesson plan.)

Recycling and Composting is a complete lesson plan for grades 3-5 that teaches students about the value of renewable resources through media and hands-on activities.

Cyberchase: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle engages students in the quest to reduce trash output.

Kids Go Green has several segments for elementary students to learn more about reducing the impact of waste on the environment. Take a look at Waste Less, Reducing Food Waste, and Litter and Our Oceans.

Trash Dash Game is a lively demonstration of a fun classroom activity you can do with your students.

In Garbage, a young boy figures out how to make a huge pile of garbage smaller. You may also want to check out Juice Boxes and Electronic Gadgets to get kids thinking about how their choices can result in reduced quantities of trash.

Worm Farm demonstrates how worms can be used to decompose organic waste that might otherwise end up in landfills.

Decomposers highlights nature’s own trash collectors, without which our planet would be buried in debris.

In Garbage: The Science and Problem of What We Throw Away, middle-school students are encouraged to think like engineers, defining a problem by categorizing and quantifying components of trash, and considering different solutions to the problem of dealing with garbage.

Waste Deep introduces students to modern landfills and includes a hands-on lesson.

Trash on the Spin Cycle explores the effect of garbage on remote islands and marine ecosystems.

The Environmental Protection Agency has an extensive collection of lesson plans and teaching guides for K-12 classrooms.

You’ll want to take a look at Reduce, Reuse, Recycle for Students and Educators. You’ll find resources for teaching, learning, and having fun.

The Quest for Less provides hands-on lessons and activities for grades K-8 relating to understanding, preventing, and reusing waste.

Recycle City is a great site for kids. As they explore the city, they will learn how residents reduce waste and improve their city in simple ways. The site includes games, activities, teacher guide, student challenges, and links to more information.

Planet Protectors features fun activities where kids improve their communities by reducing waste and saving resources.

The EPA provides clear, informative resources on all garbage-related topics. These pages are suitable for students to use in research or individual study. Take a look at these topics: land waste and cleanup, trash-free waters, landfills, reducing waste, recycling, and packing a waste-free lunch.

All About Trash is a full unit for primary grades where young children are introduced to trash generation and disposal, using a student reader and simple graphs.

Teach Engineering offers a Waste and Recycling unit that includes complete lesson plans designed to help upper-elementary students understand the role of engineering in analyzing and solving problems. In Solid Waste Takes Over, students explore the effects of solid waste and create a model landfill. In 3RC: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Compost they investigate the impact of packaging decisions. In Trash Materials Investigation, they learn what types of materials biodegrade. Also included are activities such as Trash Talkin’ and It’s All In The Package, worksheets and quizzes.

Plastic Pollution is a curriculum and activity guide that addresses the hazards posed by discarded plastics to watersheds and wildlife. Lesson are provided for grades K-3, 4-6, and 7-12. Learn more about plastic waste at Trash Academy and Plastic Pollution and You. 

Where Trash Goes is a full lesson with activities that includes both Teacher Page and Student Page.

King County Washington offers a series of K-6 classroom Activity Guides where students conduct trash audits, build worm bins, plan waste-free lunches, and more.

Project Learning Tree provides 11 Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Lessons that have applications across the grade levels in math, art, language, civics, and technology.

This Educator Toolkit from the National Environmental Education Foundation has classroom projects that encourage K-12 students to think and act as environmental engineers as they confront challenges of waste disposal and recycling.

Find lesson plans, worksheets, and activities about solid waste and recycling for grades 3-8.

You may want to check out these lessons for 4^th-6^th graders:

• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Before We Run Out of Space
• How Long Does Trash Last?
• Ollie Recycles: Lesson Ideas
• Talking Trash: A Human Problem with Human Solutions

One Person’s Trash is a series of middle-school lessons where students investigate global and local management trash and recycling programs.

Eye-opening Garbage and Recycling Lessons has engaging resources for middle-school classrooms.

Wally’s World Kids’ Page from Salinas Valley Recycles features recycling songs, fun music videos, and audio storybooks for use in primary classrooms.

Help empower your students to make meaningful change with these kid-friendly suggestions from the National Institute of Environmental Health.

National Geographic Kids has engaging, fun resources for students on all aspects of trash and recycling. 

Activity booklets to download and print for your class included Nature’s Recyclers (primary grades) and Trash and Climate Change (intermediate grades.)

Trash Talk, from Kids Discover, is designed to stimulate class discussion and highlight innovative ideas for putting garbage to use. Students may then be interested in trying out some Waste Experiments and Projects.

Take a look at this recycling powerpoint presentation for grades 4-8 and or this classroom skit students could enact about choices that produce less waste.

Resources for student research in grades 5-6 include Kiddle Encyclopedia’s Landfill Facts for Kids, Recycling Facts for Kids, and Garbage and Refuse Disposal from Brittanica Kids.