Writing About Rubbish

Rubbish

I feel cross that people are leaving rubbish on the grass. The bugs are then eating the rubbish and getting sick. Please stop littering! Please, please, please stop littering. We are trying our best to save the planet.

By Jaz

Disgraceful

I am disgraced at the amount of rubbish people have been leaving around. I feel mad and psycho. Rubbish is killing our animals. Did you know it takes 1 million years to for a glass bottle to break down? That’s a long time!

By Andre

Sad

When people put rubbish on the ground I feel very very upset and sad because some animals are dying. They think the rubbish is food so they eat it and choke or their tummies get full of rubbish.

By Lily B

How fast do things biodegrade?

This table shows how long some common items will take to break down if left in the environment.

Vegetables	5 days –1 month
Paper	2–5 months
Cotton T-shirt	6 months
Orange peels	6 months
Tree leaves	1 year
Wool socks	1–5 years
Plastic-coated paper milk cartons	5 years
Leather shoes	25–40 years
Nylon fabric	30–40 years
Tin cans	50–100 years
Aluminium cans	80–100 years
Glass bottles	1 million years
Styrofoam cup	500 years to forever
Plastic bags	500 years to forever

What happens to rubbish when it is buried?

We buried four different pieces of rubbish we found in our playground. We buried an apple core, a sticker, a muesli bar wrapper and a yoghurt container.

Hypothesis:

Half of our class thought that the apple core would break down the fastest as it is natural. The other half of our class thought the sticker would break down the fastest because it was the smallest.

Method:

   1. We collected rubbish from our school and decided on four pieces to burry.

   2. We took photographs of each piece of rubbish next to a ruler to show height and took observation notes about each piece of rubbish.

3. We dug a hole in the garden.

     4. We put the rubbish in the hole.

     5. We waited four weeks and then dug up the rubbish.

     6. We observed what had happened.