Waste tracking

1. Track your waste for one week or find average annual waste generation in the United states

a. Record amounts of materials, estimating the weight

b. Sort your waste into these categories

i. Plastics

ii. Paper

iii. Organics (food/yard waste)

iv. Metals

v. Cardboard

2. Annualize your waste generation for each category

a. Example: if you collected your waste for 5 days

i. 365 days per year/ 5 days = 73 73*x = (annualized waste) where x = your waste in lbs

3. Convert waste from lbs to tons

a. 2000 lbs = 1 ton

4. Scale your calculated annual per capita wastes to apply to the City of Phoenix

a. Population of the city = 1,500,000

5. Using WARM (found here: http://epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/tools/warm/index.html, excel or web-based), input your assumptions and 5 different waste values

a. Use the following input assumptions for WARM (inputs will be limited for web-version)

i. 3. Arizona, 4.Current Mix, 5a. LFG Recovery, 5b. Flare, 6. Average, 7a. Provide Information, 7b. 45, 20, 41, 35

b. Use the following categories Mixed Paper (general), Mixed Plastics, Mixed Organics, Mixed Metals, Corrugated Cardboard

c. For your Baseline Scenario, put all of your waste in the Landfilled column

d. For your Alternative Scenario, put all of your waste in the Recycle or Compost columns

6. Using your summary report for MTCO2E and Energy, create two stacked column graphs which compare your Baseline Total results to your Alternative Total results

a. Make sure to label your material types in your chart

b. Your column graphs should have two columns each with 5 categories in each column

7. Discuss your results

a. Both your Baseline and Alternative scenarios had the same inputs, what is different about their impacts?

b. Why is there negative energy?

c. How does behavior impact actual waste disposal?

d. How does available infrastructure impact actual waste disposal?

e. What would you recommend to a university that it interested in reducing their environmental footprint from wastes, both from a technical and social/educational standpoint?