RDS Primary Science Fair Project

The Battle of The Bins

or

Do kids prefer a character based or plain

recycling bin?

Miss OMalleys 4th Class

St. Brigids Primary School
Kildare Town
Kildare
Miss OMalleys 4th Class Kildare

The Battle of the Bins

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The Background
Our School St. Brigids Primary School in Kildare is a member of the Green
Schools Programme. We proudly display our Green Flag Flying above the
gates of the school. In our class we had a discussion on what it means to be
a Green School. On looking at the website for Green Schools in Ireland we
found out that; one of the main themes of the Green Schools project for
protecting the environment in schools is the reduction of waste and litter.
Our local Tidy Towns Group had offered to support projects in our school
relating to awareness of waste reduction and so when it came to September
2014 and our class had an opportunity to take part in the RDS Primary
Science Fair we thought we could do a project to help our school with our
school waste. Kildare Tidy Towns group helped us with this project and
together with our teachers Miss OMalley and Ms. ODwyer we came up with
some great ideas. But to really come up with a great idea for the Primary
Science Fair we first of all had to learn a lot about the really big problem of
waste and how clever people all over the world manage waste to help
conserve our planet.
In the famous words of the world famous Kermit the Frog its not easy being
green but we want our school to be clean and green and we want to make it
easy for everyone to help our save our planet!

The Problem we want to help solve

All over the world we have a problem with waste, countries have a problem,
cities have a problem, communities have a problem, schools have a problem
and yes we even have it at home!!!
Waste, and how we choose to handle it, affects our world's environment
that's OUR EVIRONMENT. The environment is everything around us
including the air, water, land, plants, and people-made things, its our planet!
We need a healthy environment for our health and our planets health. The
waste we create has to be carefully controlled to be sure that it does not
harm the environment and our health.

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What exactly is "waste?"

Waste is anything we throw away or get rid of, that doesnt get used.
Why can waste be bad for the environment?
Our rubbish is taken to a landfill site - a big hole in the ground where it is
spread out and squashed down. Burying waste in landfill sites spoils our
countryside and is very bad for the environment. Chemicals can build up
underneath the surface, which can escape. A poisonous liquid can also seep
out and cause damage to plants and wildlife, this is pollution.
Soon there will not be enough land left to build new landfill sites and lots
wildlife habitat or farmland lost.
Also sending everything to land fill causes a much greater release of Carbon
Dioxide to the atmosphere and increases the problem of global warming.
Not recycling also uses much more energy because we need to replace
everything that we throw away, this is really inefficient and wastes precious
energy and money.
How can we help?
As part of our schools Green School programme we are learning about how
we can help our environment. We started by learning that by practicing the
three R's of waste management: Reduce, reuse, and recycle! We can help
solve the problem of waste.
Practicing all three of these activities every day is not only important for a
healthy environment, but it can also be fun too. So we want everyone to

Reduce
Reuse
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Recycle
Our Question
On any given week in our school, we observed that our recycling wheely bins
are filled with recycling rubbish from the classrooms. Looking more closely
however it is easy to find remnants of lunches and the like mixed in with the
recyclables. This left us wondering why this should be. Perhaps its due to
habit, a need for reminders or could it be the way in which we present the
idea of recycling which could make all the difference?

From this discussion was borne the concept of the characterized recycling
bin! What would happen if we invented a character with a name and a story
and put that in classrooms? Would it prove more effective than a plain
recycling bin? Would there be an increase in the amount of recycling?

How we thought up of Beano the super cool school recycling

bin
Together with Miss OMalley and Mary from our local tidy towns group we
had a brainstorming workshop where our class made up a great story about
our character bin. First things first, we decided his name would be Beano
Bin.

STOP EVERYTHING FOR A SECOND

BECAUSE NOW WE WANT YOU TO MEET
BEANO AND HEAR HIS STORY!!!!

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This is Beano He is Secret Agent Just Retired from the

Federal Recycling Investigators (FRI)

He applied for a job in our School, or Vice-Principal Mr.

McKeown interviewed him
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He was a bit crazy after many years working with the FRI

So Mr. McKeown decided that he could help teach kids about

recycling in Miss O Malleys Class, theyd be well able for him
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Our Hypothesis
That kids will (A) recycle more with a character based recycling bin and (B) a
character based recycling rap will raise awareness of recycling more than a
plain recycling fact sheet.

Description of Our Experiment

How we designed our experiment
The experiment was designed to have two parts.
In the first part we wanted to measure the amount of recycling carried out
by classes using the beano recycling bin and compare it to the amount of
recycling carried out by classes using the plain recycling bin. This was to
find out which type of bin was used more to recycle or which bin was going to
win the battle of the bins. We figured the best way to measure the amount
of recycling was to weigh the amount of recyclables in each type of bin on a
daily basis for each class.
The second part of our investigation measured the awareness of recycling of
three groups, (a) classes using the beano recycling bin and the beano rap,
(b) classes using the plain recycling bin and a plain recycling fact sheet and
(c) a control group not involved in the project. This was to find out which
group knew the most about recycling. We figured that a questionnaire is the
best way to test how much people know about recycling.

Our Materials
Part 1: Testing which bin is used more for recycling

8 Identical Aluminum Bins

Art materials (paint, old newspapers, old card etc.)
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 Weighing Scales (Luggage Type Weighing Scales)

8 Black Plastic Bin Bags (All the same)
Part 2: Questionnaire on recycling awareness

questionnaire on paper

Our Method
Part 1
We got 8 identical aluminum bins.
We decorated 4 bins as character Beano Bins using paint cardboard
old newspapers and glue and we kept 4 plain bins.
We distributed the 4 plain bins to 4 classes and we distributed 4
Beano Bins to 4 other classes in our school.
We explained that these bins were to be the class recycling bins.

We collected the recyclables from the bins daily over a period of 7

days.
We removed the recyclables from each bin and separated them into
the categories paper, cardboard, plastic and aluminum cans.
We weighed each category separately by placing them into a plastic
bag and weighing in grams (g) with a luggage weighing scales and
recorded our result in a data table for each class bin, we also
recorded the total weight of the recyclables and the presence of any
non-recyclables in the bin.
We stored our collected data carefully in a folder.

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Recording the contents of the Bins

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Weighing recyclables using a luggage scales from each bin and

recording results

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Separating our Recyclables into paper, cardboard and plastic

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Part 2
We chose a set of questions to test the awareness of recycling on three
groups of students in our school.
These were,
1. the classes with the beano bin who were given facts about recycling
by our character beano bin rap (the beano rap is included at the back
of our report).
2. the classes with a plain recycling bin who were given a plain recycling
fact sheet (the fact sheet is included at the back of our report)
3. a control group of classes not given the beano rap or the fact sheet
and not participating in the recycling project
We distributed the questionnaire to each student in the classes chosen for
testing.
The questions we asked were
1. What can we recycle in our home recycling bin?
2. What can we recycle in special centres down town?
3. What are the 3Rs of recycling?
We also put in two other questions just to get students to think more about
recycling these were,
Why is recycling good for our planet?
and
Have you made any extra effort to recycle recently?
We included the questionnaire at the back of our report.

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We only scored the answers to questions 1, 2 and 3 based on the amount of

correct information each student gave.
Question 1
Score 0 (totally wrong answer or question not answered), 0.5 (partially right
answer) or 1 fully right answer.
Question 2
Score 0 (totally wrong answer or question not answered), 0.5 (partially right
answer), or 1 (fully right answer
Question 3
Score 0 (totally wrong answer or question not answered), Score 0.33 1R
correct, 0.66 2Rs correct, 1 3Rs correct.
Our school is so big that we got 275 answers to our questionnaire and so our
teacher had to help us to cut down the amount of data so we could more
easily discuss the results of the survey.
The way we cut down the data was to take 20 representative student
questionnaires from each group. These samples were chosen at random to
form a team for each group.
You can see these results in Appendix 1 and all our numbered questionnaires
are available to view at the stand in the RDS.

Our Results*
*All our data collected will be on display at our stand at the RDS
for inspection in separate folders
Part 1
The first part of our results involved comparing the weight of recyclables
found in each recycling bin. We wanted to present the results in the easiest
way to understand so that everyone could see who won the battle of the bins
on a daily basis. To do this we chose to represent our results on a bar graph
showing daily amounts of beano and plain bin recycling. This allows us to
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compare the beano and plain bins easily. In Graph one we present total
amount of recyclables for all the beano bins and all the plain bins for each
day we recorded, the beano bin is shown in red the plain bin is shown in grey.
From Graph 1 below we can see that the Beano Bin attracted the most
recycling each day throughout the whole 7 days.
Therefore the Beano Bin clearly won the Battle of the bins.

Graph 1 Compares Daily Total Recycling Amounts for Beano

and Plain Bins over the 7 Day Project. The Beano Bin is in
Red the Plain Bin is in Grey
(this Graph is presented on the display stand for closer
viewing)

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Graph 2 Compares the Total Amount of Recycling by Each of

the Participating Beano Bin and Plain Bin Classes during the
Project
(this Graph is presented on the display stand for closer
viewing)

We further compared the differences between all the participating classes

to see which class was the best at recycling. We found out that the beano
bin mostly performed better in attracting recycling but there were some
surprises. We found that Beano Bins ranked 1st and 2nd and 4th for best
performing classes but surprisingly a plain bin came in 3 rd place. We asked
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why did this happen and we came up with a possible explanation, perhaps it
was because this class is located directly beside our class and saw us
developing the beano project and got really interested. In fact they were
so excited by the beano idea that they named their plain bin Greg the Grey
Bin.
Mr. Greenes class were the recycling winners.

Part 2

Our questionnaire helped us to find out how much each group, (Beano
Bin/Beano Rap group, Plain Bin/Plain Fact Group and the Group who didnt
participate in the project and received no information on recycling), knew
about recycling at the end of our project.
As explained in the method section, as we had 275 students returning the
questionnaire we had to pick teams to represent the different groups. We
scored each group out of twenty based on the amount of information they
knew about recycling.

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No Bin Classes
Team

The 3 'R's

Recycling Centre

Home Recycling
Beano Bin Classes
(Beano Rap) Team
Plain Bin Classes (Fact
Sheet)
Team

7.5/20 10.5/2 15.7/2

correc
0
0
t correct correct
8/20
17.7/2
correc 11/20
0
t correct correct
6/20
correc
7/20
6/20
t correct correct

Table 1 Shows the scores out of 20 for awareness of

recycling questions. i.e. What do you recycle at home (home
recycling). What can you recycle at a recycling centre down
town (recycling centre) and What are the 3Rs of Recycling
(The 3Rs).

Miss OMalleys 4th Class Kildare

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Graph 3 Shows a comparison between the three groups of

answers to the three questions about recycling. i.e. What do
you recycle at home? (home recycling). What can you recycle
at a recycling centre down town?(recycling centre) and What
are the 3Rs of Recycling (the 3Rs).

We found that both the Beano and Plain Recycling Bin groups knew more
about recycling than those not participating in the project. Surprisingly
however we found the Plain bin group performed the best. This may be
because they were given a straightforward fact sheet about recycling
rather than a more complicated Beano recycling rap.

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Our Conclusion

Our investigation proved that our prediction (hypothesis), that a

character recycling bin will be used more than a plain recycling bin, is
true. This was based on the results that the beano bins always had
more recyclables, by weight, in them than the plain bins, each day over
the 7 day project.
The effort put in to explaining the facts of recycling by both the
beano rap and the plain fact sheet also proved to increase the
knowledge of both these groups about recycling. This was based on
the fact that the groups who participated in the project scored
better on the questions about recycling than the group who did not
participate in the project.

One thing we would have done differently if we were to do this project again
is that we would have examined how much recycling was carried out in the
classes before the project started and the classes were informed about
recycling and given a new bin. This would have helped us figure out how much
the bin project influenced recycling in our school.
We also got great feedback from all the classes who took part in the project
they all loved Beano, in fact all the classes in our school want to have a Beano
Bin.
We suggest that every school Ireland have a competition to develop their
own character bin like Beano to help the kids in that school recycle more.
We proved that a character bin helps kids recycle more and so do more for
protecting the environment. We want Beano to go global and save planet
earth.

Bibliography (All the websites we used to help us make our

cool project)
www.recyclemore.ie
www.repak.ie
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www.greenschoolsireland.org
www.tidytowns.ie
www.crni.ie

Acknowledgements (A big thanks to everyone who helped us

out)
We would like to thank our Principal and Vice Principal Mr. Fleming and Mr.
McKeown for giving time and encouragement to this project
We would like to thank Ms. ODwyer for organizing the science programme in
our school;
We would like to thank Mary OConnor the Environmental Awareness Officer
of Kildare Tidy Towns and Kildare Tidy Towns Group for assistance with
mentoring and sponsoring materials for this project
Mary Kathryns Deli for sponsoring our packed lunches at the RDS
Our Class SNA Miss
And of course we want give a really special thank you to teacher Miss O
Malley

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Appendix 1 Results

100
43
36
88
61
18
30
20
59
16
103
21
44
52
83
86
77
1
75
23

Home
Recycli
ng
0.5
0
0
0.5
0
0.5
0
0.5
0.5
0
0.5
0
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
1
0
1

Beano
Recycli
ng
Centre
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
1
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5

Scor
e

7.5/20

10.5/2
0

Samp
le #

Miss OMalleys 4th Class Kildare

119
144
107
136
108
165
206
132
176
121
185
195
133
125
168
181
116
190
161
158

Home
Recycli
ng
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0
0
0
0
0.5
1
0.5
0.5
0.5
0
0.5
0
0.5
0.5
1
0.5

Plain
Bin
Recycli
ng
Centre
0.5
0.5
1
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
1
0.5
0.5
0.5

Scor
e

8/20

11/20

The 3
'R's

Samp
le #

0.66
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
15.7/2
0

The Battle of the Bins

270
243
241
225
231
252
264
227
255
259
236
224
223
260
211
253
256
254
222
235

Home
Recycli
ng
0.5
0
0.5
0
0.5
0
1
0.5
0
0.5
0
0.5
0
0.5
0.5
0
0.5
0
0
0.5

No B
Recy
ng
Cent
0.5
0
0.5
0
0
0.5
0.5
0
0
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0
0.5

%
Score

6/20

7/2

The 3
'R's

Sampl
e#

1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0.66
0
1
1
1
1
1
17.7/
20

Page 20

Beano Arrives at St. Brigids Primary School he sees the Green

Flag and hopes he can get a job as a super-cool recycling bin

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Recycling Questionnaire for Classes in St. Brigids Primary School

Kildare
Class Teacher

Student Name

QUESTIONS
What can we recycle in our home recycling bin?

What can we recycle in special centres down town?

How much rubbish does Ireland produce each year?

What are the 3 Rs of Recycling?

Do you absolutely totally love your class recycling bin?

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THE BEANO BIN

RECYCLING RAP

My name is
Beano and Im
a very special
guy
I came to your school from the FRI
In Ireland today we throw a lot away and weve got to
recycle cos it doesnt pay
To throw all your rubbish in the bin
Thats 19.8 million tonnes that weve all been wastin
Recycling is good cos it saves energy
protects our environment and saves loadsa money
Recycle one plastic bottle and it will pay
To power one light bulb for 3 hours a day
By recycling we save a natural resource
Like water, maybe oil, or trees of course!!
Produce less Greenhouse gas and Keep the Climate
Cool
Its really very simple and heres the rules
In the Class Recycling Bins
Paper Cardboard Plastic Tins
When I say Tin
I mean Aluminium
In the Garden Compost
Veggies, Eggs and Garden Waste
At Recycling sites down town
Heres whats going Down

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We can put an old mobile phone

In really good new home
Give it to Jack and Jill
And help a Kid whos ill
Recycling Batteries and Electric stuff
Is always simple never Tough
In super markets there are boxes
For old batteries, clever foxes
The local recycling centre also takes some things
That your family might like to bring
fluorescent tubes, paint, textiles,
used gas cylinders and waste oils
Here are two that dont Rhyme so you must
remember,
printer cartridges and spectacles my rap is nearly
over,
Thank you for listening to the Rap from Beano Bin
Reduce Reuse Recyle ITS CALLED RECYCLIN!!!!

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Recycling Fact Sheet

Why?
Each year Ireland produces approximately 19.8 million
tonnes of rubbish, much of which should be in the
recycling , rather than the regular, bin.
Recycling saves energy, protects the environment and can
save you money. Recycling just one plastic bottle will save
enough energy to power a 60 watt light bulb for three
hours.
By recycling we:
Conserve our natural resources such as oil, metal, water
and trees
Conserve energy required to produce new items from
scratch which means fewer greenhouse gases are emitted
into the atmosphere to slow down global warming
How?
You can recycle a range of different things including in a
home or school recycling bin:
Paper and cardboard
Plastic
Aluminium Cans
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In the Garden Compost

Vegetable Peelings, Eggs and garden waste
At Special Centres
Mobile phones
Waste electrical and electronic equipment, household
batteries and car batteries (WEEE)
Other items: fluorescent tubes, paint, printer
cartridges, spectacles, textiles, used gas cylinders and
waste oil
Remember
Reduce Reuse Recycle

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