Girl Scouts Forever Green - Reduce Waste Details

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The project
How to do the project
Reduce Waste activity
End the plastic bag habit: facts, tips, and resources
Break the bottled water habit: facts, tips, and resources
Start recycling aluminum cans: facts, tips, and resources
Tools and promotional resources

Along with your family and friends, you'll learn about the effects of waste on our environment, reduce the number of discarded single-use plastic bottles and bags, and increase aluminum recycling rates. You'll be working toward lifelong behavior changes by:

Using and supporting the use of reusable bags (for shopping, school lunches, gym clothes, and so on)
Refusing single-use plastic bags by either purchasing or making reusable bags and giving them to others
Using a refillable, reusable water bottle (preferably one made of aluminum)
Collecting, counting, and recycling aluminum cans

At the end of the month, on the Register page, you'll log:

The number of unregistered people (and number who are Girl Scout members) who participated in your Reduce Waste project
The number of times you used a reusable bag and reused a single-use plastic bag during one month
The number of reusable bags you gave to others during one month
The number of times you refilled your reusable water bottle during one month
The number of aluminum cans you recycled during one month

Reusable Bags
You can create a reusable bag from existing plastic grocery bags or items that are headed for the wastebasket or donation pile. For example, by following the steps outlined here, a treasured Girl Scout T-shirt can become a sturdy bag—a great way to show Girl Scout pride and honor all the Girl Scout environmental efforts over the last 100 years! But you're not limited by this design; feel free to search online for other creative ways to make reusable bags—or come up with some of your own!

Making a Girl Scout T-shirt reusable bag
Turn an old shirt into a reusable bag in just three steps.

Turn the shirt inside out, and cut off each sleeve.
Using a medium bowl, trace a scoop in the neckline, and cut along that line.
Sew across the bottom hem. Turn the shirt right-side out, and it's a reusable bag!

Use the bag you make to carry your lunch, books, and gym clothes. The bag is also great for shopping, which makes it easy to say no to single-use plastic bags. Use this handy Make a Reusable Bag Instructions sheet if you need instructions for larger group settings. (Remember to record the number of times the bag is used during the month and register your totals on the GSFG Register page.) You also may want to make or purchase more reusable bags, or have local businesses donate some. Just be sure to keep track of how many bags you give out during the month and register your totals on the GSFG Register page.

Girl Scouts Forever Green reusable bags are available for purchase in local Girl Scout council shops or in the online Girl Scout Shop.

Use reusable bottles
Pick out a bottle or container you'll carry with you at all times, and refill it with tap water or another beverage. A variety of bottles are available in stores and online; aluminum bottles are recommended, since they contain no Bisphenol A (BPA), an organic compound used to make many plastics that can cause various health problems. A Girl Scouts Forever Green reusable bottle is available in local Girl Scout council shops or in the online Girl Scout Shop.

Record the number of times bottles are refilled during the month with the "I Refilled My Water Bottle" sticker, and register your totals on the GSFG Register page.

Recycle aluminum cans
The aluminum can is infinitely recyclable, which means it can be used, recycled, and turned back into a new can over and over again. In fact, it can be recycled and back on the store shelf as a new beverage can in less than 60 days! That's great for the environment, because it takes 95% less energy to make a can from recycled aluminum than from raw materials. By recycling aluminum cans, you're also saving valuable space in our landfills. Check out this YouTube video, InCANvenient Truth, to hear the whole story.

So, let's recycle! Set up a plan for recycling efforts in your school or community. Use Alcoa's Recycling Toolkit to help you set up your own recycling center, promote your cause, and learn where to trade your cans for cash. Download tools and resources, including the 101 Recycling—School PowerPoint presentation to teach your classmates about aluminum and recycling. Have an iPhone? Use the Aluminate iPhone App to help you set your recycling goal, track your progress, and help you make the world a better place through recycling. Your efforts will not only benefit the environment, but also are an effective way to raise money for your Girl Scouts Forever Green projects. When you follow Alcoa's step-by-step guide, you'll be recycling in no time!

Here are some ways to recycle, depending upon where you live:

Curbside recycling: If this is available in your community, it's the easiest way to recycle. Simply put your aluminum cans in the bin and let your local recycler take them away for you. If you don't have a curbside program, consider asking your local town to start one.

School, camp, or office recycling: Think about your school, Girl Scout camp or service center, place of worship, and offices in your community. Some of these have recycling programs, but some don't. If they don't, offer to start one for them!

Earn Cash Recycling: In communities without curbside recycling, collect aluminum cans and sell them to recycling dealers, and then use the proceeds to fund your Girl Scout activities. Even if you have curbside recycling, turning your cans into cash and putting that toward your take action project is a great way to get extra mileage from recycling. Check out "Earn Cash Recycling" on Alcoa's website to get yours started. Note: As with any opportunity to raise funds in the name of Girl Scouts, check with your council to learn if there are any approvals needed.

Your friendly neighborhood recycler: If you don't have access to curbside recycling, or if you want to get money for your aluminum, go to the Recycling Center Search tool for information on where to find your nearest recycler.

Count the number of cans you recycled and register your totals on the GSFG Register page. Need some help counting cans? Try this.
1 can = 12oz
128 oz = 1 gallon
10.6 cans = 1 gallon (Round down to 8 cans per gallon because of the void space between the cans—curved edges.) So…approximately 8 cans = 1 gallon

Now do the math. Figure out how many gallons the bags or bins you're using to collect your cans hold. Take 8 cans and multiply by the number of gallons in your bag or bin = total number of cans recycled.

Connect this project to the It's Your Planet—Love It! Leadership Journey. Review the ties to the Girl Scouts National Program Portfolio for specific Reduce Waste-related Journey activities. Got great Reduce Waste project photos or YouTube video links? Send them to gsforevergreen@girlscouts.org.

It is estimated that Americans go through about 100 billion plastic bags a year, or 360 bags per year per every man, woman, and child in the country.
If everyone in the United States tied their annual consumption of plastic bags together in a giant chain, the chain would reach around the Earth's equator 776 times!
Every reusable bag used takes the place of 600 single-use plastic bags.
Once used, plastic bags may last for up to 1,000 years; every single piece of plastic ever manufactured is still on the planet: in use, in landfills, as wind-blown litter on land, or as toxic contaminants in water like global river systems and oceans.
Paper bags are not a good alternative to single-use plastic bags. Stores typically pay more for paper bags than plastic, anywhere from 5 to 23 cents per bag; these costs are then embedded in food prices, which are eventually passed on to consumers.
Plastic pollution is found floating in all the world's oceans, everywhere from the polar region to the equator. It can take hundreds of years or more to break down, and some types never truly biodegrade at sea.
An estimated 100,000 marine mammals and as many as 1 million sea birds die every year after ingesting or being tangled in plastic litter. At least 267 different species are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of plastic marine debris.
In the environment, plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller particles that attract toxic chemicals. These particles are ingested by wildlife on land and in the ocean, and can contaminate our food chain.
Plastic affects human health: Harmful chemicals leached by plastics are already present in the bloodstream and tissues of nearly all of us, including newborns.

Tips

Choose to reuse! Avoid using disposable plastic and paper bags in the first place.
Carry reusable bags whenever and wherever you shop.

Resources

Every second of every day in the United States, 1,000 people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day, 1,000 more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than 30 billion bottles and tens of billions of dollars a year.
Plastic bottles are produced from fossil fuels, typically natural gas and petroleum. More than 1.5 million tons of plastic are used to just bottle water.
Most plastic bottles are not recycled, and plastic bottles and caps often end up in the ocean.
Cleaning up plastic trash is expensive for our communities, but reusables save money and protect our planet and our health.
If half a million Girl Scouts each recycled five plastic containers, they could save enough energy to power a compact fluorescent light bulb for 6,849 years.

Tips

Instead of bottled water, drink good, clean tap water from a refillable bottle.
If you don't feel comfortable drinking tap water, consider installing a filter on your faucet or getting a filtered pitcher you can keep in the refrigerator.

Resources

The annual average number of aluminum cans used per United States is about 325. If 3 million Girl Scouts commit to recycle all of the aluminum cans they use during the year, about 975 million cans (29 million pounds of aluminum) will be eliminated from the waste stream.
About seven kWh of energy is saved by recycling a pound of aluminum cans (about 34 twelve-ounce cans). This is equivalent to:
- Baking cookies in a 350 degree oven for three hours.
- Running an Xbox for 40 hours or a Nintendo Wii for 335 hours.
- Running a 32" flat screen LCD TV for 75 hours.
- Powering a 100 watt lightbulb for 64 hours (2.6 days).
105,593 cans are recycled every minute in the U.S.
Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a television for nearly two hours.
If every American recycles just one more can per week, we can boost recycling rates in the U.S. from 58% to 75%.
Aluminum cans have amazing strength. Four six-packs (24 cans) can hold a 4,000-pound car.
Recycling just 1 ton of aluminum cans conserves more than 207 million Btu, the equivalent of 36 barrels of oil, or 1,665 gallons of gasoline.
In 2009, Americans recycled 55.5 billion aluminum cans. Those cans, placed end-to-end, could make 167 circles around the earth.
Using recycled material for new aluminum uses 95% less energy and produces approximately 95% less greenhouse gas emissions than making metal from new materials.

Tips

Resources

AlcoaRecycling.com
Aluminate – iPhone App
U.S. EPA - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Page
Resources for Recycling in Specific Sectors (Events, Schools, Businesses)
U.S. EPA – Recycle City – game for kids
Container Recycling Institute
Curbside Value Partnership - identify solutions to improving curbside recycling programs
Earth911.com – find recycling centers and learn how to recycle
Municipal Solid Waste in the U.S. Facts and Figures
Make an Impact Carbon Footprint Calculator

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