Objective: Students will understand the negative impact illegal dumping has on the natural beauty of our state.
Subject Areas: Science, Social Studies, Language Arts
Vocabulary:
Illegal dumping - the disposal of waste at any location that does not have a permit from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ).
Reuse - the use of a product more than once in its same form for the same purpose or for different purposes.
Recycle - the process of collecting materials from the waste stream and separating them by type, remaking them into new products, and marketing and reusing the materials as new products.
Compost - the decomposition of organic matter into a product used to enrich or improve consistency of soil for growing plants.
Materials: bags of garbage collected specifically for this activity, gloves, trash bags
Procedure:
1. Plan an outdoor activity (picnic, nature walk, outdoor story-time, etc.) at a nearby park, nature trail, or on the school grounds.
2. Before students arrive, have the garbage placed near picnic tables, play areas, or in other visible areas. Take some out of the bags, spill it around the grounds.
3. Make sure students have to walk, play, and sit down to eat near the unsightly garbage.
4. Note student reactions to the garbage. Explain that it is illegal dumping. If they don’t want to eat or play in an area that is strewn with illegally dumped wastes, neither will others. This could deter tourists or other visitors from the area, as well as discouraging new industry from coming into the area, and diminish property values.
5. Ask: Where should waste go? Waste should ultimately end up in a permitted sanitary landfill. However, the waste may first go from the household, school or business to a transfer station and then on to a landfill. Many counties in Arkansas do not have a landfill, so the waste may have to travel some distance to its final destination in a landfill.
6. Ask: What can be done to make our natural areas that have garbage illegally dumped on them become cleaner, safer places to visit?
(1) Clean up the area - with adult supervision and using gloves, pick up all the “illegally dumped” waste.
(2) Separate waste into different piles of plastics, paper, metals, etc.
(3) Can any of these items be reused? If so, how?
(4) Can any of these items be recycled? If so, how and where?
(5) Is there fruit and vegetable wastes that could be composted?
(6) Dispose of any remaining wastes properly.
7. Explain that this situation was “set up”, but there are many real illegal dumps sites along our roadsides, in our parks, and near our rivers and streams,
8. Ask: what can be done to eliminate these real illegal dump sites?
(1) Organized cleanups like the Pick Up Arkansas! Campaign set for April 1998.
(2) Make signs and posters to place in natural areas to discourage illegal dumping.
(3) See if local government or sponsors can provide receptacles for trash and recyclables.
(4) Write letters to local media providing education on proper disposal/recycling techniques.
(5) Write letters to local officials asking for more enforcement action against illegal dumpers.
(6) Help educate the people/citizens of your community about the dangers of improper and proper waste disposal.
Evaluation Questions:
1. What is illegal dumping?
2. How does illegal dumping spoil the natural beauty of Arkansas, the Natural state?
3. How does illegal dumping affect tourism and developing industry in Arkansas?
4. What is the proper way to dispose of wastes?
5. What can you do to help eliminate illegal dumping?
Additional Reading:
“It Zwibble & The Greatest Cleanup Ever” by Were Ross & Wer Enko & Lisa Verenko, 1991 Published by Scholastic, ISBN-0-590-44840-4 730 Broadway, NY, NY 10003
“Katherine & The Garbage Dump” by Martha Morris Published by Second Story Press, ISBN 0-929005-39-2 - 760 Bathurst Street Toronto, Canada M5S 2R6
Developed by Phyllis Mooney, formerly Northwest Arkansas Recycling Coordinator, ADPC&E; now Environmental Coordinator with the Ft. Smith-Sebastian County.