Waste+stream+Audit+2011

The Environment and Sustainability Co-ordinator at Aquinas is looking to generate some figures about the total waste stream at Aquinas during a year. This will help the College develop a clear picture of their waste going to land fill and provides vital information to help prepare the sustainability management plan currently being developed. Mr XXXXXXXXXX has been asked to speak to staff in the Maths faculty to see if this invitation could be taken up and developed into a task for students. The task would require students to develop these preliminary figures into a more detailed set of annual figures about waste and prepare a report for the Environment and Sustainability Co-ordinator ESC. The best report as judged by the Maths department in consultation with the ESC will be awarded a prize likely to be a cash payment yet to be determined but somewhere in the vicinity of $50. An initial audit of the waste generated by Aquinas is revealed in the summary below.
 * Aquinas Waste Stream audit March 2011 **

** External rubbish bins **

Averages about 30 black bags per day - bags are estimated to carry about 70 litres. Each day these are collected by the maintenance team and dumped in the dump master bin at the front of the school in the bus area. The actual amount of rubbish in the bags can vary a little but they need to be emptied on a daily basis due to the nature of the rubbish. The bins contain all waste types including food scraps. ** Classroom bins ** Averages about 40 black 70 litre bags per day. These are collected throughout the school by the cleaners at the end of the day and placed in key areas. The maintenance team then collect the bags and deposit into dump master in bus bay area. ** General Waste Dump master Bin ** The College has a daily collection of a 4.5 (check this) cubic metre general waste bin but from interviews with the maintenance team it is estimated that this bin is most likely to only be around 80-90% full most days. Other items like tree and shrub pruning’s are also placed in the bin as well as other larger items unable to go in bins. ** Paper recycling ** Twenty one 240 litre blue paper recycling bins are placed out by VCAL students in year 10 on Mondays and are collected on a Tuesday by Visy. Collection only occurs during the school terms and will be for 40 weeks. In the first 5 weeks of 2011 most of the bins placed out for collection were full. A couple of the bins in week 5 were only half full. It is likely that this will be the pattern throughout the year. Paper collection boxes are in place in every homeroom in year 7 to 9 and in some of the specialist area like the Arts building, the ARC and technology centres. In the new senior building the number of paper boxes is approximately 20 and increasing. The actual numbers of paper collection boxes though has not been determined exactly. As boxes become available they will be placed in suitable locations and it is likely that this number will continue to increase. As the College updates computers, suitable computer boxes are being used for the paper bin collection. Visy charges $5.50 per paper box and a decision has been made to use readily available cardboard boxes to help reduce paper loads and save money in replacing boxes. The cost of the paper recycling pick up by Visy is $10.30 per pickup for 21 bins. ** Cardboard ** Estimates of the volume of cardboard coming in to the College are difficult due to the numerous inputs into the College. It also proves difficult to determine the waste amount because of the various ways in which the cardboard can be dealt with whilst in the College. Large volumes of cardboard finds its way into either the blue paper bins, dump master, local recycling centre via maintenance transporting it there, staff desks for storage and now for paper collection. A cardboard bin has been placed in the science area for cardboard boxes. This will be collected by Visy on a “as needed” basis for $10 per pick up. The on-going fee for holding the bin is $9 per month. The intention of the bin is to provide a location where boxes can be reused within the College and by staff who may need boxes for various purposes. Additional cardboard that can’t fit in the bin is taken to the Vermont recycling centre by maintenance. There is no fee for this charged by the recycling centre but there is a turnaround time for the maintenance team to deal with the waste. Hopefully the turnover through the cardboard bin in the science area will help to reduce the impact of cardboard packaging. Extra information that might be helpful for setting the project
 * year || HR/mentor || Number of students 2011 ||
 * 7 || 11 || 301 ||
 * 8 || 11 ||  ||
 * 9 || 11 ||  ||
 * 10 || 14 ||  ||
 * 11 || 10 ||  ||
 * 12 || 13 ||  ||
 * total || 70 ||  ||