Team Meeting October 6, 2015

Presentation

No formal presentation today.

Outline

We watched a Trash Trek YouTube video that showed one method to solve several of the missions. Everyone, please watch! While it is not our intent to copy these solutions, we should certainly study them and see if we can incorporate anything helpful.

Our school custodian, Mr. Z, came to talk to us about trash and recycling at our school. It was a very fun an informative interview.

We learned many interesting facts.

1. Mr. Z works 5:00AM - 2:30PM every day, and other members of the custodial staff work late afternoon into the evening.  
2. Our school recycles MANY items like paper, bottles, electronics, cardboard, and book.
3. Mr. Z expressed an interest in recycling food. 
4. We talked about batteries. The school does not use many, but they are in the large classroom clocks. 
5. The school recyclables are sorted and separated. 
6. Trash is picked up twice a week, but additional pick-ups can be requested.
7. Recyclables are picked up once a week.
8. There are special procedures county-wide for various waste items such as using bio hazard stickers on anything that has blood on it. 
9. Mr. Z has not heard about the school initiative for a Wonder Space. Shouldn't some school recyclables be headed to that room?
10. Only paper should go in the green recycle bins in each classroom. There are white collection containers on each hallway for other recyclables. Students collect the paper once a week.

We also worked on solving missions primarily the building with brackets mission model/destruction.

Homework

None between now and Thursday.

What's Next

There was some interest in improving battery recycling as our project. This would relate to school and home. Most of the team didn't think their parents recycled batteries. How many toys have double A, triple A, C or D batteries? How often do they run down? How often are they thrown away?

It is not desirable for the kids to handle old batteries, but they agreed that they could teach their parents about recycling batteries in our county (Holly Springs) and make collection tins for school and home.  I found a couple of recycling storage containers online on Pinterest. What else could we recycle to create a battery recycle container?



If the team wants to pursue this, we should:

1. Research Wake County procedures including the South Wake Multi-Material Recycling Facility in Holly Springs.  South Wake: 6130 Old Smithfield Road, Apex [map], 919-387-4312
2. Make notes on why it is so important to recycle batteries.
3. http://www.earth911.com/recycling-guide/how-to-recycle-single-use-batteries/
4. ???