Recycle! Make Money and Make Compost
Materials:
- Trash
- 1 large potato sack
Instructions:
1. Separate the trash found around your home.
2. Create Set A. This is the set of trash composed of 4 large garbage bags. Remember to segregate: put plastic bottles together, metal cans together, newspapers and paper together, glass bottles together. Make sure each group has its own garbage bag.
3. Create Set B. This is the set of trash composed of three piles of garbage in your garden. Remember to segregate: put dead leaves and twigs from around your garden together, put decaying vegetables and fruits from your kitchen together, put coffee grounds together, put newly fallen leaves and freshly cut grass together.
4. Take Set A and bring this to a recycling center. Some centers weigh how much recycled material you bring in, and they give you money in exchange for it!
5. In your garden, dig a hole about two to three feet into the ground and in a rectangular shape slightly smaller than your potato sack.
6. Pile the dead leaves, twigs, decaying vegetables and fruits into the hole.
7. Pile the coffee grounds, newly fallen leaves and freshly cut grass on top of this. Cover the rest of the hole with soil and sprinkle with water till damp. Cover the entire area with the potato sack, securing it to the ground so it doesn't fly off.
8. After two weeks, check on the pit. You should notice a bad smell and there may be some heat coming from it. This means the materials are decomposing. Using a shovel, mix the materials or turn the materials over. Water and cover it again.
9. Turn or mix the materials in your pit every two weeks. If you want to add materials, go ahead. Just remember to mix them in. Soon you will have an earthy black crumbly material known as compost. This makes a great fertilizer.
Your compost pit exhibited the elements needed for decomposition. The materials were open to the elements, were in a moist environment, and typical garden soil usually has decomposer insects and bacteria. The heat from the sun, concentrated underneath the sack provides an ideal warm temperature for the decomposition process to take place. As you can see, the result was an earthy substance which can make rich soil. This is what happens to all living organisms, though each one has a different time span for decomposition. In the end, everything becomes dark rich earthy soil which is great for growing new plants.
Make this science project a continuous project around your home. Constantly make compost and constantly segregate your trash to bring to recycling centers. It's the least you can do to help the earth's environment.
One of the best parts about recycling is that you can get paid to do it. If you want to make extra money, you can sell your compost to local gardeners too!
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