Recycling activities- measuring the weight of waste

How heavy is our waste ?

 

Is it the weight of a dozen ostrich eggs
and a two-toed Sloth....

....or three spinney ant-eaters
and an Arctic Fox ?

Maybe it's a woolly monkey
and a quartet of racoons...

More than a dozen Baboons
And our rubbish
may stretch to the moon!

There is a growing need to waste less, reuse and recycle more in order to reduce environmental impact. We are all aware that we need to minimise our waste- but do we really have a sense of how heavy our waste weighs ?

The aim of this activity is to give a sense of scale to the weight of our rubbish. A walrus sounds heavy (this is roughly what an average household throws away every year); a vole sounds small and light. The following list shows a sense of scale that this activity aims to illustrate- from small to big,

• ostrich egg
• pet rabbit
• fox
• baboon
• walrus
• elephant

Using different animal weights, the weight of 'waste' can be added up. Perhaps the rubbish bag only weighs the same as the average pet rabbit but by the end of the year, the accumulation of rubbish may weigh the same as a walrus.

How the activity works
This activity has been found to work well with children in Year 6. To do this activity with one class it is suggested that you use 2 sets of bathroom scales. Each child can weigh themselves and record their weight in kilograms. Using the table in the information sheet (follow link below) they can translate this into animals - i.e. two woolly monkeys and an arctic fox.

• Measuring the weight of waste- information sheetFile Type: Adobe PDF document, File Size:132.28 Kb (19 seconds @ 56K) Opens in a new window

This activity can be a fun maths activity. Pupils can work out an average person's weekly rubbish (by dividing by seven) multiply to find out the weight of monthly or yearly waste.

Further resources
The worksheet contained in the link below gives a further selection of animals.

• more comprehensive list of animal weightsFile Type: Microsoft Excel document, File Size:22.00 Kb (3 seconds @ 56K) Opens in a new window