Estimates of packaging waste produced per person per year vary. In 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that each person generated 550 pounds of container and packaging waste per year, which equals .275 ton per year. This means that packaging waste generated annually by an average classroom of 25 students could weigh as much as an elephant. (The African bull elephant typically weighs between six and eight tons. 25 students X .275 ton/student = 6.875 tons.) Much of that packaging becomes solid waste. Recycling packaging can reduce waste, conserve natural resources, and prevent air and water pollution that results from manufacturing and disposal. Packaging such as soft drink and milk bottles made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate or #1) and HDPE (high density polyethylene or #2) plastics can be recycled to make other products: fiberfill, insulation, dock pilings, park benches and parking lot carstops. Aluminum cans can be recycled into other aluminum products, such as ice cube trays and lawn furniture. In fact, almost all aluminum products contain some recycled aluminum. Aluminum cans themselves contain an average of 54 percent recycled aluminum.

Today, many manufacturers make packaging from materials that can be recycled. Manufacturers may label material "recyclable" or "made from recycled materials" or "made from post-consumer recycled materials." By purchasing products made of these materials, consumers conserve resources, increase the market demand for recycled materials, create jobs in manufacturing recycled products, save landfill space and reduce pollution.

There are positive and negative environmental impacts associated with each type of packaging material, and manufacturers make trade-offs in design based on some of these considerations. Consumers can also affect the environment negatively or positively by the purchasing decisions they make with regard to product packaging. Some considerations: Is the packaging necessary? Reusable? Recyclable? What advantages or disadvantages does one packaging material have over another? What kinds of resources were used to create the package? Are these resources renewable? Can they be recovered through reuse or recycling?

Solid waste issues are complex; there are no right and wrong answers. However, we can make conscious choices about the packaging we use and the resources we consume. We do this by thinking about the purposes behind product packaging, learning about some of the properties of matter with respect to how well it achieves those purposes, and then making decisions about purchase with regard to the information we have learned.


PROCEDURE

2. Tell students that today they're going to explore packaging materials. Ask students why they think there are so many different kinds of packaging. (They may suggest the following about the purposes for packaging: reduces spoilage or breakage, provides convenient individual servings, keeps products fresh, keeps food warm or cold, displays the product attractively, prevents contamination, keeps the "fizz" in carbonated beverages, or helps stack products in an organized way for display or shipping.)

3. Ask students to work with their teams to sort the packages in any way that makes sense to them. Discuss their classifications and the reasons for them.

4. Ask students to think about what each packaging material is made of (what resources were used). Explain resources that "grow back" are called renewable and those that don't are called "nonrenewable." (You could let students know that some materials that can grow back, such as oil, are considered nonrenewable because it takes so many years to replace them.) Have students give examples of renewable and nonrenewable resources, then have them sort the packaging again into "renewable and nonrenewable" categories. Discuss their choices.

5. Hold up examples of "natural" packaging and show how nature provides a "package" for its food resources. Ask students what happens to natural packaging after food is eaten. Tell students that nature's food will decay (rot) and renew the soil to grow new food; when this happens, we call the material "compost." Tell students some manufactured packaging (such as paper) can also decay and return to the soil. These materials are called "biodegradable." However, when a material goes to a landfill, it doesn't matter if it is biodegradable or not because, in the absence of air, virtually nothing decays in a landfill. You may want to have students explore the idea of biodegradability by having them bury a few items to discover how they change, or by visiting a landfill to discover how little garbage changes once it is buried.

6. Ask students to think about the packages and speculate which materials are biodegradable and which are not. Can they once more sort the packaging, this time into biodegradable and nonbiodegradable categories? Ask students to discuss their choices.

Optional

6a. What happens to packaging after we're finished with it? (throw it away or recycle it) Ask students where packaging goes. (wastebasket, garbage can, dumpster, landfill, incinerator, recycling bin) Ask them what happens to resources used to make packaging when the packaging is thrown away. (they're also thrown away) What does that mean for renewable resources? What about nonrenewable resources? Talk about how nature provides a limited number of resources; when they're thrown away by burying or burning them, they can't be used again. You can also explain that other resources are used to make packaging, such as water and energy. When we throw away packaging, we've also "thrown away" the energy used to make them.

6b. Have students name reasons people would throw away resources. (don't know that resources are limited, trade-offs such as time or convenience) How can we solve the problem of throwing away resources? (use again, buy products with less packaging, recycle)

6c. Ask students which packaging materials can be recycled. Build on what they already know about recycling, such as, when we give resources back to recycling companies they make new items and the resources are used again rather than thrown away. Are there ways to know which packaging materials can be recycled?

Part Two: Packaging Properties
7. Explain to students that all matter has properties. Properties can help us identify objects and give us ideas about the object's use. For example, rubber floats, so rubber would make a suitable life raft. It wouldn't make a good anchor. Have students choose five types of packaging to examine in terms of their properties.

Take suggestions about which criteria to evaluate, such as strength, ability to hold food, ability to hold beverage, whether it's recyclable, how well it fits on a grocery shelf (stackability), how little or how much space it takes to ship from manufacturer to retailer (ease of transport), or how heavy or light it is. Ask how they would test these properties. (e.g., strength could be tested by seeing how many books the package can hold, or whether it could be cut with scissors)

8. If they were manufacturers, how would they make decisions about the packages they'd use? Pass out the student worksheet ("All Wrapped Up" chart). Do one example with the class, then have the teams work on the other four.

9. Ask the class to think about all they've learned about packaging. Ask them to review the definitions they developed. Which definition do they now think is best? Or would they revise it? Have students copy or revise the definition they now think is best.


WRAP UP

2. An acrostic is a "poem" in which each line starts with the letter in a particular word. All the lines in the poem say something about the poem's subject. Make an acrostic using one of the following words: packaging, resources or compost. For an extra challenge, try these: biodegradable, nonbiodegradable, renewable resource or nonrenewable resource. Example for the word "compost:"

Cherry pits
Orange peels
Mashed egg shells
Put them in the earth
On a pile in your garden
Soon they'll decay and
Turn into new soil.

Alternate (advanced) activity: Visit the supermarket and count the number of aisles devoted to each type of packaged product. Compare the relative use of packaging types. Manufacturers consider shipping, storage, and display space when they decide how to package products. Can you guess why some package types are more common than others? Are there any examples of unnecessary packaging? If so, how could manufacturers use less packaging and fewer resources? Interview a grocery store manager and ask how store managers decide which packages to stock and sell.

2. Based on what you've learned about packaging and renewable/nonrenewable resources, will you or your family make any different choices the next time you go grocery shopping? Give some examples of what you'll do differently.

REFERENCES

2. Parts of this lesson were adapted from "Package (Re)Package" and "Plastics," 4Rs Project: A Solid Waste Management Curriculum for Florida Schools, 1990, pages 73, 74 and 83.