Did you know that…

• 115 pounds of newspaper is the equivalent of one tree?
• Paper makes up about 34 percent of our garbage– the largest chunk?
• In Boulder you can now recycle plastics numbered 1-7, but only if the plastic is a certain shape?
• There are many other things you can recycle, like plastic bags, if you take them to the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials or CHARM?
• Metal, like steel and aluminium, can be recycled and infinite number of times, while most plastic can only be recycled once?
• That aluminium is mined from beneath the rain forest?
• That if you recycle the “wrong” materials the whole lot of recycling goes to the landfill??

This is just some of what we learned last week when eco-cycle’s Alycia Bouyounan came to visit CAP.

We also learned that New Vista High School students have A LOT to learn when it comes to where their garbage goes, what can and cannot be thrown away and what isn’t trash at all! Check out the photos from  our trash audit!

We found more after this photo was taken: a granola bar, and a pack of cookies.

Much of what we found could have been composted, but composting isn’t slated to arrive at most high schools for at least two years. Meanwhile landfills are filling… could this be a job for CAP kids, stay tuned…