How Environmentally Concious Are Those Treehuggers? Final 1

This topic submitted by Wendy Katz, Laura Martin, Liz Ondrey, Leah Winsberg ( winsbelr@muohio.edu ) on 10/10/03 .

Natural Systems 1 Syllabus---Western Program---Miami University

Wendy Katz
Laura Martin
Liz Ondrey
Leah Winsberg
10 October 2003

How Environmentally Conscious Are Those ÒTree HuggersÓ?

Introduction

The purpose of our study is to investigate whether or not students with environmentally based majors recycle more often then those students with a different major. We will collect data from four dorms on Western Campus; two of which house students in the Western Program and two of which house students with Main Campus majors. In agreement with Klang, we believe that narrowing our research down to these four dorms will help us analyze our data while still representing the macro scale of Miami University (318).

Our hypothesis is that students whose intended majors involve environmental issues will recycle more than those students who have non-environmentally based majors. As students in the Western Program, we assume that since most people are aware and concerned about the environment, they are more likely to recycle. The students that live in Mary Lyon and Peabody are required to take classes and live within a community that encourages them to think critically about their actions that affect the world in which we live.

We plan to present the information we collect through this lab to our peers. Hopefully this will make people think about their actions more carefully and think about the impact that recycling has on the environment. ÒRecycling is not a goal in itself, but part of a larger issue to reduce the negative environmental and economic impacts of resource use.Ó(Fullerton, 2)

This research is an interesting topic to us because of our desire to prove whether or not intended majors influence studentsÕ actions outside of the classroom. In our Social Systems and Natural Systems courses, we have discussed our impact, as individuals, on the environment. In Social Systems we analyzed our process of buying, using, and disposing of our resources, making us more aware of each decision along the way and how it affects not only us, but the product and our society. In Natural Systems we have discussed how the environment suffers from our lack of concern for the products we use and how we dispose of them. Both classes sparked an interest in us to learn about peopleÕs dedication to the conservation of our environment. Studying this data will allow us to make a distinction as to whether or not students will take action in environmental issues, without having the option of thinking critically about the information presented to them in class.

Through our study we are becoming more aware of the benefits of recycling by collecting information from different online journals. It came to our attention, on a more serious level, of how important recycling is for the future of our environment.

On average, most people think that recycling has recently developed in our society. In actuality, after investigating our ancient history, it dates back to a prehistoric activity. There are many examples of how recycling was incorporated into earlier times. When our ancestors hunted they didnÕt waste any parts of the animals they killed by making clothing out of hides, using blood for paint, and bones to make jewelry. They furthered their recycling by building an entire village out of the bones of 149 woolly mammoths and formulating glue from a protein found in animal skin, cartilage, and bone (Walker, 2). Although recycling has been traced to ancient times, it has only been traced back to 1840 in the United States. In 1890, George Waring developed a program to help consolidate waste, clean streets, and improve public health (Berthier, 194).

Each year, Americans will dispose of 208 million tons of municipal solid waste. We can greatly reduce this amount by recycling certain items. It is better to recycle materials that cost too much to be refined then to use raw resources. Such materials would include metals, plastics, and glass as opposed to wood, which isnÕt worth recycling since it consumes more energy to recycle than to replace. Out of the previously mentioned materials, it is most cost efficient to recycle aluminum. The average curbside collection program can make $487 off of one ton of aluminum cans, whereas by recycling glass you lose $47 each ton. In addition, recycling plastics loses $912 each ton (Schaffer). Facts, such as those mentioned above, are inspiration for universities to get involved in recycling programs as well as the overwhelming amount of waste from students. One such university realized the impact of the wasted resources of their students and implemented a recycling program. Massey University started this program because of the high level of concern and interest shown by the students (Mason, 266).

Similar to Massey University, Miami University initiated a recycling program and by 1999 Miami Recycles was established (History of Recycling, 1). Recycling is encouraged and easily implemented because there are bright-colored recycle cans in every room and bins for all recyclable materials in each bathroom. When all is said and done, students are left with the power to decide whether or not they will recycle and contribute to the well being of our environment.

Methods

We will begin our study by contacting Logan Minning through an email about recycling at Miami University and to request a phone interview to get more in depth answers about the recycling program on campus. We will find out on what day the recyclable items are picked up in each dorm on Western campus. Our group will split up into pairs and each pair will be responsible for collecting the data in two of the four dorms that are being tested. For instance, one pair will be in charge of the amount of recyclable items in the main campus dorms, Havighurst and Clawson, while the other pair will be in charge of the Western dorms, Mary Lyon and Peabody.

Once our questions about the recycling process on MiamiÕs campus are answered, we will being collecting our data once a week on the day prior to the weekly pick-up. We will space out our pick-ups at equal amounts between all dorms. For example, if the recyclables are picked up on a Tuesday in Havighurst but on a Thursday in Clawson then we will go Monday to Havighurst and Wednesday to Clawson. Collecting our data in such a manner will enable us to have a better chance at picking up an accurate perception of the amount of recycling that goes on in each dorm. We will be collecting our data for four weeks straight, which means we will be collecting from each dorm four times.

The items that we will be collecting are aluminum, glass, plastic, and paper. With each group of items collected in a single dorm, we will weight in ounces so we can have a better idea of how much is actually being recycled. After we have collected and weighed all of our data, we will divide the weight of the recycled objects found in each dorm by how many students are living there. We will contact someone from the University that can give us the number of students in each dorm so that we can find the average weight of recycled goods contributed by each student. We will be using data tables and ANOVA graphs to document our data and use statistics to hopefully reject our null hypothesis.

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