text and art by Thor Wickstrom

It’s garbage
day!

March 2019 Volume 18 er #3 cricketmedia.com $6.95

We’ve recycled I’ll take those off I wonder what he

everything we your hands. You’ll dispose of does with it?
could. But this is it safely? Let’s follow him
all trash! and find out!
Sure!

He’s fixing up
old junk!
And selling it
as “vintage”!

What about
Welcome to my little shop! Can I interest this old food?
you in a well-loved chair, legs extra... You’re selling
Or how about some bottle glass art? Of course not!
that?!?
That’s lunch.
Very
nice!
Volume 18, Number 3 March 2019

Liz Huyck Editor

Tracy Vonder Brink Contributing Editor
Emily Cambias Assistant Editor

Jacqui Ronan Whitehouse Art Director

Erin Hookana Designer
David Stockdale Permissions Specialist

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Photo acknowledgments: “Nosy News,” art © 2009 by Amanda Shepherd; C—Robert

Adrian Hillman/Alamy Stock Photo; 2 (RT) The Maryland Zoo; 3 (RB) NASA/JPL-Caltech;
2 Nosy News
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30 Contest and Letters

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(RT-1), (RC), (BC), (RB), 18 (RT-1), (RT-2), (LC), (LB), (RB), 19 (LT), (LC), (RT), (TC),
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33 Marvin’s Clever Tricks

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Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History Library #3521, (RC) Courtesy of American
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(Preservation Virginia); 32 (RT) Johannes Albert/Shutterstock.com.
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Suggested for ages 7 to 10.

 How do satellites retire?
Features
6 Where Does the Garbage Go?
by Your Curb

8 How to Recycle Everything

page 21
by Tracy Vonder Brink
12 Meet the Decomposers
by Anisha Yagnik h?

15
Can we trash tras

Ratz’ Guide to Tasty Trash

by Ratsputin
16 Washed Ashore
20 Space Junk
by Charlene Brusso
page 23
23 A Trash-Free Future?
by Alison Pearce Stevens

26 What the Past Throws Out

old bottles?

by Tracy Vonder Brink

Would you pay for garbage?

d o w it h

page 17
What do y o u

page 6
 by
Elizabeth
Preston

A temporary
go-cart will help
this eastern box
At the Maryland Zoo, a turtle with h a broken turtle’s shell
to heal.
shell is slowly getting better. It hass help
from a wheelchair made of Legos.
A zoo worker found the hurt
turtle in the wild. The part of its
shell below its body was cracked.
Vets at the zoo did surgery to
connect the broken pieces. But
the shell would need time to
heal, like a broken bone. The
vets needed a way to keep the
shell off the ground.
So a vet’s friend built the Add some
turtle a special Lego wheelchair. turbojets?

The turtle can still use its front leegs

to crawl. But the wheelchair proteccts
its shell as it zooms around.

Cry Like a Baby

When a baby cries, humans listen. And
cats may have figured out how to use
that fact. Researchers have found that
when cats are hungry, they purr with a
higher note, in the same pitch that babies
cry. Humans who listened to tape recordings
of purring cats identified the “feed-me” purr
every time as being more urgent—and therefore
most likely to get some kibble. Over thousands of
years as companion animals, have cats learned how
to get humans to come to their call?
2 ask
 Over the Moonmoon
Many planets have moons. But can

art © 2019 by Marnie Galloway

a moon have a moon of its own?
Imagine Earth’s moon with a tinier
object spinning around it. No one
has yet seen a moon with its own
moon. But astronomers have done
the math and say that it’s possible.
The first moon would have to be
big, and far away from its planet.
The scientists call this kind of
moon a “submoon.” But online fans
of submoons have come up with
other nicknames. These include
“moonito,” “moonlet,” “grandmoon”
and “moonmoon.” What would you
call a moon’s moon?
Lifting my cupcup,
I ask the moonmoon
To drinkdrink with me.

Satellites are tools that scientists launch into space.

Swarms of large and small satellites circle the
Earth to study the weather or make maps. But now
two very small satellites, known as CubeSats, have
traveled much farther—they are orbiting Mars.
The pair of miniature satellites launched on a
rocket along with the InSight Mars probe. Once
in space, the satellites flew to the red planet on
their own. While InSight drills into the surface,
the CubeSats will orbit Mars and relay signals.
Scientists hope this test will show that CubeSats
Each CubeSat
could be used in future deep-space missions. is small enoug
to fit in a bac h
kpack.

ask 3
 I can’t believe how much
my family throws away
every week.
That’s it. I’m We’ll
making this a zero help.
waste week.

The less trash I get,

the happier I am!

I can compost These can

that for my go in the
garden. compost too.

What’s he
doing?

or a Stop fighting over

I can use this f
He’s collecting metal g. my trash!
robot I’m buildin
to sell for scrap.
I’m gon
na
You can sell be ric
h.
trash for money?

I was
here first.

4 ask
 Hey, I can use those. You’re just throwing Mom threw away my
away money. favorite chair!
I know where we can put it.

What have you been

doing with all my trash?

Come see.

Don’t bother, Just what I need

I had a zero for polishing!
waste week.

ask 5
 Where Does
When you toss something in the trash,
soon a garbage truck will come to take
art © 2019 by Mark Hicks

it away. Then where does it go? That

depends on where you live. Different
towns deal with trash in different ways.

Recycling
A recycling truck
picks up paper, card-
board, metal, plastic,
and glass. These go to Right this
the recycling plant to way

be sorted and made

into new s
s.

Incinerator
An incinerator is
a huge furnace that
burns trash to make heat and
electricity. The ash that’s left gets
buried in a landfill. Trash ash can
be toxic, so it has to be
stored carefully. But
it takes up a
lot less room
than just
plain trash.

Ship Away
Don’t spill
any! Some towns pay to
send their trash to
landfills or incinerators
in other places.

6 ask
the Garbage Go? art by
Mark Hicks

Compost
Food waste might go to a composter. In a compost heap, Compost
bacteria and worms break down dead plants and old food. will help our
garden grow!
They turn it into good, rich soil. Some people
keep compost heaps in their gardens.
Big commercial composters handle
waste from restaurants and farms.

Microbes that eat trash make

methane gas. Landfills have vents
to let the gas out so it doesn’t
explode. Some capture the methane.
They use it to fuel garbage
trucks or make
electricity.
Landfill
Some trash gets buried in
landfills. A landfill starts as a
big hole. Trucks dump trash. Big
earth movers push it into place
and crush it down. They cover
the trash with dirt to keep
scavengers away. The bottom
of a landfill is lined with a
barrier to keep bad things
from leaking into the ground.
Pipes drain away liquid.

Dump When the

A dump is just landfill is full,
it’s covered with
what it sounds earth. It might
like—a place to become a park
dump trash. or pasture.
They are not
covered like
landfills.

ask 7
 by Tracy Vonder Brink
photos by Tom Uhlman

How to Recycle
Everything
W
hat happens to your
recycling after you toss it in
Now what? the bin? If you live in Ohio,
Kentucky, Indiana, or West
Recycle it! Virginia, it might go to a
Rumpke Recycling center.
We went to visit one to see
how it works.

Recycling Pickup
Do you put all your recyclables in the
same bin? That’s called single-stream
recycling. That’s how Rumpke Recycling
does it. They handle 1 billion pounds of
mixed recyclables every year.
Curbside recycling bins are emptied
into the trucks. When they’re full, the
trucks head to the Material Recovery
Facility, or MRF.

Front loaders scoop the recycling onto

conveyor belts to start the sorting trip.

Tip It Out
The trucks dump all the recyclables
into huge piles on the tipping floor.
This area is big enough to hold two
days’ worth of recyclables at a time,
about 2.5 million pounds.

8 ask
Move Along! Recycle Checkers
The conveyor belts move 55 Workers stand next to the belts. They
tons of recyclables per hour pull out anything that can’t be recy-
through the MRF. The MRF cled and toss it into bins to be taken to
is a bit like a huge factory the landfill. Plastic bags go up vacuum
filled with big machines. chutes. It’s important to only put recy-
It’s noisy and dusty, but it clables into your bin. The wrong things
doesn’t smell bad. can break the machines or start fires.

The Big Sort

What happens next is a lot
like sorting Legos. As the pile No clothing No plastic
of recycling moves along, or shoes bags
one material at a time is
pulled out. First cardboard. Machines do a lot of the
Then glass. Then paper. Then sorting, but they aren’t
perfect. So people check
plastics. Each gets sorted after each machine. No No hoses
and bundled together. batteries & chains

Paper Shakers
Two more sorters
separate paper.
Recyclables hop up and
down as spinning discs
send paper flipping over
the top. Plastic bottles
bounce off the sides and
land on different belts.

Cardboard Bumper
Look! There
The stream flows over rows of goes my bottle!
spinning metal discs. Light, flat
cardboard bounces out over the
top and onto another conveyor
belt. Everything else drops between
the discs and continues on.

ask 9
 Glass Breaker Eye Spy Paper There are six
Heavy glass bottles get broken and Plastic different optical
up in the paper sorters. The High-tech scanners scanners. This
one is checking
bits of glass fall onto a glass- use light to spot for HDPE, the
catcher below. They’ll be paper and plastic. kind of plastic
shipped to a glass processing Inside, infrared used in milk jugs.
facility in Dayton, Ohio. beams scan the
stream. Infrared
reflects differently
from paper and
each kind of
plastic. Each
machine looks for
one material. When
it finds some, a
puff of air blows it
off the belt.

Aluminum Eddy
Another magnet creates a strong
magnetic field called an eddy
current. This makes aluminum
cans jump off the belt. Non-
metals continue on.

Steel Can Magnet

A rotating overhead magnet grabs steel
cans as they pass underneath. The cans
stick to the magnet and drop off on the
other side as the drum spins.
p
Quick, tell it you’re
not a can!

10 ask
 Bottles in Bunkers
At the end of the line, streams
of separated paper, plastics, steel
cans, and aluminum fall into big
bins called bunkers. When the
bunker is full, the recyclables are
pressed into bales.

Boxy Bales
The finished bales are stacked, ready to
be taken away. One bale of aluminum
cans can weigh 900 pounds (400 kg).
Paper bales weigh up to a ton. The bales
are loaded onto trucks or railroad cars.
They’re shipped to companies who turn
the recyclables into something new.
text © 2019 by Tracy Vonder Brink, art © 2019 by Bill Slavin

Time for Something New!

Factories buy the metal, plastic, glass, paper, and
cardboard to make new things. So another way to
recycle is to buy things made from recycled material,
like toilet paper made from recycled paper instead of
trees. If cl rs can sell the stuff they reclaim,
the will keep r ycling.
y
Crushed glass and plastic are
sometimes added to asphalt
This park bench used
to make strong roads.
to be plastic bottles.
There’s my
bottle again Aluminum and steel can be melted down
but now it’s
and made into new cans, over and over.
all fuzzy!

Old plastic can be spun

into yarn to make fleece
and other clothing.

ask 11
 Meet the G arbage doesn’t turn into
soil all by itself. It has he

Decomposers from decomposers. Who

are decomposers? They’re bugs,
fungi, and bacteria that feast on
dead stuff. They break up the
The food you don’t eat
garbage into its basic ingredients.
goes into the garbage. But They eat some, and return the rest
to the soil for new plants to use.
what eats the garbage? So the cycle continues.
You call it
We call it
garbage...
by Let’s meet some of this
delicious!
Anisha Yagnik amazing clean-up crew.

Scavengers
The first to feast on garbage are the
scavengers—animals that are not picky
about what they eat. Rats, mice, seagulls,
and raccoons often dine at garbage piles.
They pick out anything edible and break
up trash into smaller chunks. When
they’re done, the decomposers take over. Trash heaps offer an
easy meal for seagulls,
who like the same
foods people do.
Raccoons’ clever
hands can easily
open garbage cans
and trash bags.
Rats have
evolved to live
with humans
and eat our
trash.
 Slugs and Snails Slugs like fruit as much as
Slugs and snails eat both living and dead we do. They don’t mind if
plants. Theirr raspy to
tongues can chew up it’s a bit rotten.

tough vegetables, making it easier

for other decomposers
to get to work.

It might take
text © 2019 by Anisha Yagnik

this snail a
while to eat
a whole leaf.

I like
strawberries
too! Though
maybe not
Insects that one.
Bugs are champion garbage chewers.
chewers
Many eat old plants. Some like paper.
Some prefer meat and bone. In a trash
Pill
heap you might spot centipedes, pill
bugs, or bugs, beetle larvae, mites, maggots,
roly polies, munch
on dead leaves. They
and of course, earthworms.
help turn dead plants
back into soil.

These tiny white worms are maggots,

the larvae of flies. Many insect larvae
Give us old What about (young insects) are decomposers. Maggots
leaves, we’ll this tasty aree vvery hungry. They will eat any
make soil! b
bottle? trashh
h, and are especially fond of meat.

Earthworms make soil as they eat through leaves and

old vegetables. In fact, almost all the soil you see has
passed through an earthworm at some point.

ask 13
 Bacteria
When we say something is “rotten,” often it’s
bacteria at work. Bacteria are too tiny to Bacteria and fungi
(green mold) are
see, but they’re decomposing superheroes. both at work eating
Millions of different kinds of bacteria might up this old fruit.
That’s
be at work in a single trash heap. They nature
What is recycling!
break down food into simpler ingredients. that horrible
Some bacteria make smelly sulfur smell?

and ammonia as they digest trash.

That’s what makes the stinky
garbage smell.
Fungi
Fungi are mushrooms and molds. They
are not plants. They digest food outside
their bodies by spitting out powerful
We can eat digesting juices called enzymes.
poisons, but not Different kinds of fungi can digest wood,
Can you plastic! trash, and even poisonous pollution.
digest this
bottle for
me?

Molds are also fungi.

They love to feed on
garbage. And sometimes,
they let us know that
it’s time for our food
to be garbage. By the
time you see mold
on the outside, the
Wood is tough stuff, but fungi like fungus has already
the sulfur tuft fungus can break it started to break
down. These mushrooms digest dead down the inside of
logs. Without them, the forest would whatever is moldy.
fill up with dead trees.

Wanted: Oil and Plastic Eaters

Plastic, yum! One reason oil spills and plastic trash
are such a problem is that most
We have a decomposers can’t digest them.
big job for So oil and plastic don’t decay—
you! they hang around forever.
Scientists are hard at
work looking for bacteria or
insects that might be able to
decompose plastic and oil. One
candidate is Colwellia bacteria. They
eat ethane, a relative of gasoline.
Another possible plastic hero might
be waxworms. These caterpillars spit
out a chemical that can eat holes in
plastic. If we can figure out how to
copy it, we might be able to spray it
on dumps to dissolve old plastic.

art by Thor Wickstrom
Dump 
City dumps are the shopping malls
of trash. You never know what
you’ll find. You might have to dig
through paper, light bulbs, broken
chairs, all kinds of stuff. And
watch out for seagulls. But be
persistent! Tasty, well-aged potato
chips and old pizza are in there
somewhere! If you’re lucky, maybe
with mushrooms growing on it.
Other Dump 
Now this is not a tasty dump. Just
construction waste! Metal, concrete,
plastic pipes—Bleh. No stars for you!

art © 2019 by Thor Wickstrom
Can
The old, reliable garbage
can at the curb may not bee
thrilling, but it’s always therree.
A good place to find a bit of
everything. This house could
do better at recycling—but
under the plastic there’s
bound to be some still-green
veggies and not-yet-green
cake. Nice and fresh! But
when you hear the garbage
truck, make a quick exit.
Compost 
For the discerning
gourmet, a compost pile
is a lovely layer cake
of deliciousness. On top
there’s the fresh stuff.
Down below it gets more
and more mushy, until
at the bottom there’s a
pungent soup for dessert.
Watch out for bugs and
worms, unless you want a
wiggly mouthful.
Dumpster 
Dumpster diving is like opening a treasure box. The
secret is to pick the right spot to dig. Dumpsters
near restaurants or bakeries are best. Or schools—
kids never finish their lunches. Wooo hooo! Score!
ask 15
 Can you spot a sand shovel? A
bath toy? A boat buoy? What
are those doing in a fish?

Hey, what’s
that doing in
our ocean?

W
hat a beautiful fish! But
take a closer look. What’s
it made of? Are those bottle
Washed
Ashore
caps? A plastic shovel? A broken chair?
Yep, this entire sculpture is made from
plastic trash. And all of it came from
the ocean.
Can art save the sea?

The beautiful rainbow fish was

made by artist Angela Haseltine
Pozzi. She likes to go for long
walks on the beach near her home
Artist Angela in Oregon. But she was bothered
and a plastic
penguin friend.
by all the plastic trash that kept
washing ashore.Where
was it all coming from?
Hey, you dropped
something!
Lots of them!
16 ask
 Volunteer groups
collect tons of plastic
litter from beaches.
Scientists estimate
that 8 million tons of
plastic enter the ocean
every year. That’s 15
shopping bags full for Animals sometimes
every meter of coast! mistake plastic bits
in the water for
Some is dumped in the plankton or jellyfish.
water. Some blows off Don’t eat But when they eat
plastic, it makes
streets. Wind and ocean that!
them sick.
currents carry plastic
trash back to beaches.

Angela decided to do
something with all that
trash—turn it into
art. Her sculptures
have recycled more
than 40,000 pounds of
plastic from beaches in
California and Oregon.
The sculptures travel
to zoos and aquariums
around the world.

ask 17
 In 2010, Angela started the
Washed Ashore project. The
project has two goals: clean up
the beaches, and teach people I don’t know
which is
about the problem of ocean an scarier!
plastic. Volunteers collect
beach plastic and sort it by
by
color. Then Angela and a
team of artists turn the
plastic into sculptures
that celebrate the beauty
of the oceans. They hope their
work will get people to think
about how our everyday choices
can harm the seas we love.

Different colors
of plastic are
sorted into bins. We found
Scientists estimate that some
since plastic was invented, more art
humans have thrown out supplies!
8 billion tons of it. Much
of it is one-use items like
plastic bags and water
bottles. Only about
10% of plastic gets
recycled.

Volunteers pick up
plastic trash to
clean beaches.

18 ask
A welder puts
together a metal
frame.

Plastic pieces
are wired and
stapled onto
the frame.

To make
a lovely
goldfish!

Real fish would

appreciate it
if the plastic
stayed ashore.

Much better! Only

7 billion
tons to go!

19
 3
…2…1…Liftoff! The rocket surges The white dots around
Satellites do upward, carrying a new satellite this Earth picture show just
useful jobs
in space. But to help scientists predict the some of the thousands of
when they stop weather. As it rises, the rocket sheds human-made objects orbiting
working, they
need help to get empty fuel tanks. Finally, it releases our planet. Only about 1 in
out of the way. the satellite, setting it into orbit 10 of these dots
around the earth about 12,500 is a working
miles (20,000 km) up. satellite. The
Since 1957, rest are old
humans have put satellites,
A tiny,
thousands of rocket fast-moving
Gotcha! satellites into stages, bit of space
junk punched
orbit. But and other this hole in
they don’t last debris. space shuttle
Endeavour.
forever. What All of
happens when this space
they break or junk is moving at
stop
t working?
ki ? thousands
th d off miles
il an
They keep circling d
d
it’s getting a bit crowded
up there.

How do
yoou clean up
space?

a
Sp

20
 Calling home
h base.

Future satellites Space agencies have tr fic

may have sails that
pop out when their computers that keep track off
mission is done. 222,000 big pieces of space junk.
The sail will pull
the satellite They warn
wa spacecraft to move if it
down to burn looks like something might hit them.
up in Earth’s
atmosphere. Meanwhile, scientists around the
world are trying to think of ways to
clean up old satellites. There are many Call for
different ideas. Most try to slow junk space clean-
up, roger!
down and pull it toward Earth. Once
the object hits Earth’s atmosphere,
is dangerous—it can punch a friction will cause it to burn up safely.
hole right through a spacecraft.
Sometimes bits of space junk Self-destruct Satellites
collide or explode, shattering into The easiest way to keep space clean
thousands of smaller pieces. Each is to build satellites to dispose of
piece is now a danger. The more themselves. When the satellite is no
more longer needed, it will fire a thruster

k
e. or open a solar sail. This will slow the

n
satellite so it falls toward Earth. This
could help prevent space trash in the
future. But what about all the junk
already up there?

Brusso Nets and Harpoons The Cleanspace

RemoveDebris is one of many One will catch
old satellites in
ideas for trash-collecting a cage. This is
satellites. It has both a just a drawing;
it hasn’t been
net and a harpoon built yet.

21
 It’s easier to clean
up two cookies...
Why is it a problem ...than lots of crumbs.
if junk collides?

Sc
Scientists h largest
are targeting the l
piiecees of junk first. They want to get
RemoveDebris tthem out of the way before they
first scans the junk, bbreak up into more pieces of junk.
then uses a net or a
harpoon to capture it. A
prototype is now being Sppace Blanket
tested in space.
Onne of the most unusual ideas is a
bbit like a space tissue. The “Brane
RemoveDebris’ Crafft” is a thin, bendy, solar-powered
trash harpoon
to catch sppacecraft that looks like a blanket. It
This high-tech stray junkk will
w seek out a bit of space junk, wrap
blanket wraps
around an old
and reel it in. Then around, and then power itself down
satellite. Solar it will attach a sail or a to burn up in the atmosphere. So we
panels provide
power to pull
thruster to slow the junk down so might need a whole box of them.
the satellite it spirals toward Earth. It will use a
down.
laser to scan the junk to decide how Any Other Ideas?
best to deal with it. Yes! Lots! Engineers are working on
RemoveeDebris trash-collecting satellites that use
is already being magnets, glue, string, and disposable
testeed at the jet packs, to name just a few. Some
Intternational are being tested, others are still on the
Space
S Station. drawing board. But with enough good

text © 2019 by Charlene Brusso

ideas, maybe we can clean up space
and keep ouru satellites, and
astronauts, saafe.

The goal is to get

satellites to re-enter
Earth’s atmosphere.
When they do, the
Goodnight, friction of air heats
satellite!! them up so hot
that they burn up
completely.

22
A Trash-Free
Future? Could we have a
world without trash?
by Alison Pearce Stevens, art by Darren Gate
Don’t worry,

T
rash is fact of life. Done
eating a sandwich? Toss the
wrapper. Tore your pants?
Dump them in the trash. All over the
world, people create garbage that
ends up in landfills and dumps. But
does it have to be that way? Some
creative people think not. They have
a vision of a trash-free future.
The Trash Problem there will
always be
There are many ways to make less NO TRASH?!? leftovers.
Who would
trash. We can use re-fillable water want that?
bottles instead of plastic ones that
get thrown away. We can recycle
glass, plastic, metal, and paper.
Food scraps can be composted to
turn into new soil. Everything that
is re-used or recycled means one
less piece of trash.
hat about shoes or chairs
or cars? Those are
hard to recycle

text © 2019 by Alison Pearce Stevens, art © 2019 by Darren Gate

because they’re
not made of just
one thing. Is
there any way
to keep these
out of the trash?
Maybe—if we
change the way
they are made in
the first place.

ask 23
 The Plastic Problem
Plastic is made from oil. It’s cheap, strong, waterproof,
cl e
and easy to shape into all kinds of objects. That makes c y

Re
it very useful. But it also doesn’t decompose. And that
can be a problem.
• Between 500 billion and 1 trillion
plastic bags are made every year.
• Most are used for about 15
minutes.
• Less than 1% (1 in 100) are
recycled.
• The rest go in the trash, where
they linger for thousands of years.
What’s the solution? Can we invent
a plastic that is strong and doesn’t At the landfill, the metal legs
dissolve, until we want it to? Many might rust away. The cloth might rot.
scientists are working on it.
But the foam and plastic parts will
stick around—possibly for hundreds
Making Better Trash of years. Plastic lasts a long time. It
Are you
easy to
Say you have a chair with a plastic doesn’t rot. That’s one reason it’s so
I’m still
recycle?
using all my
frame, metal legs, and a cloth seat useful. But that also makes it difficult
parts. with foam padding. It’s all glued to get rid of.
together tightly. If one of the legs Is there a better way to dispose
breaks, you might have to throw the of a broken chair? Why not repair it
whhole chair in the trash. Since it’s instead? If the chair is easy to take
made of many different materials, it apart, you could replace a bent leg
will probably go to the landfill. with a new one. Then only the leg
would go into the trash—or it could
pai r
Re be recycled. When items are built to
be repaired, they last longer, so less
goes into the trash.

Rethink
This office chair
has been designedd
to snap apart
easily, so it can
be repaired or
recycled. Every
part of it can bee
re-used.

24 ask
 This foam is not
plastic. It’s made
from mushroom roots
grown around straw.
It can go right into
the compost pile.

Yet another
reeason to love
mushrooms!
New Again and Again
N No part of this snap-apart,
If your chair is easy to take apart, recyclable chair winds up in a
it’s also much easier to recycle. The landfill. It’s never just “thrown
metal legs go into the metal recycling away”—it turns back into
bin. The plastic frame goes out with material to make new things.
the bottles. Fabric and foam made Getting to a trash-free future
I reduced It’s my new
from oil can’t be recycled—but it will mean changing the way we trash by edible mashed
eating all What mushroom
could be burned as fuel to make heat. make things, and the way we think the pizza! about box! Anyone
Engineers are also working on about them. These changes are just st the for dessert?
box?
new types of plastic and foam that beginning. But if we can figure it
decompose more easily. Some of out, it could help the world a lot.
these are made from mushrooms And that’s no trash talk.
and plants. This can go into the
compost (along with the fabric) to
make new soil. Other new kinds of
plastic dissolve when they meet acid
or special kinds of bacteria.

ask 25
 What the Past
You can learn a lot about people
from what they throw away.

H
ave you ever wondered how
people lived long ago? What
did they eat for breakfast? Did
I detect the
they wear hats? What kind of tools
presence of did they use? The answers might be
squirrel.
hiding in their trash.

Clues in the Dump

Like modern towns, every long-ago
village had a garbage pile. These
dumps are full of stuff from ordinary
lives. A broken sandal, a spoon,
a melon rind. Archaeologists are
scientists who try to find out how
ancient humans lived. And to them,
these ancient trash heaps are treasure
troves. They even give the trash
a special name: middens.
History on the
Half-Shell
One thing archaeologists
have learned from old
trash heaps is that ancient
people were very fond of
oysters. Along coasts all over the
This ancient oyster shell was tossed by a diner
on a beach 2,000 years ago.
world, oyster-eaters tossed their
empty shells into huge piles—shell
middens. A kind of salt in the shells
kept anything else buried in the heap
from decaying. So animal bones and
other artifacts that were thrown in
with the shells were also preserved.
Maine has over 2,000 shell
middens. Some are 5,000 years old.
When archaeologists tested the shells,
they found that the oysters were only
eaten in the winter or early spring.
Animal bones in the heaps revealed
that ancient Native Americans also

26 ask
Throws Out middens. About half the pottery
by Tracy Vonder Brink,
art by Rupert Van Wyk

These clay cups

came from a place two days’ walk were used for
drinking cocoa.
away. So the people of Chaco Canyon
didn’t make all their
pottery themselves.
Archaeologists
tested some pots to see
what kind of food they
once held. They found
traces of…chocolate!
Chocolate comes from
How many years of oyster-eating did it take to
make a pile as high as a hill? the cacao plant. But
cacao trees only grow
far to the south, in
ate deer, bear, moose, wild birds, Mexico and Central
and many kinds of fish. There were America. That means
even bones of sea mink and great people from Chaco must
auk, a flightless bird that went have traveled and traded Some cups were found
extinct in the 1880s. with other ancient peoples together in a big heap.
from quite far away. Is it cacao Cacao is the tree,
Cocoa from Far Away Even long ago, every- or cocoa? cocoa is the drink.

The ruins of a great city sit in Chaco one loved chocolate!

Canyon, New Mexico. This was the
home of the ancestors of the Pueblo
people. Some of the city’s stone
buildings had hundreds of rooms.
Chaco Canyon was also a gathering
place for religious festivals and trade.
Hundreds of thousands of bits of
bowls, jars, and other pottery have
been uncovered in Chaco Canyon’s
I deduce this tribe traded
with candy stores far away.

ask 27
 This small object Into the Well
a metal
earw spoon and
In 1607, English settlers arrived on the
toothpic coast of Virginia. They built a log fort,
then a town, and called it Jamestown.
The settlers dug wells for water.
n one well dried up, they dug
not er. The old wells became
trash pits. the trash built up
ear by yea it formed handy
layers.Archa ologists can read
these l ke
k a record of the colony.
I deduce
hen there was enough
that the to eat, the trash contained
people of One of the most puzzling objects found in the
this town bones of deer, ducks, goats, trash well was this piece of armor. Who threw
ate peas
and pigs. But a layer filled with bones it away, and why?
one at a
time. of mice, rats, and snakes shows a hard
year when good food was scarce. traded with their native neighbors. In
Bits of broken pots showed that one well, archaeologists discovered
colonists brought cookware from several pieces of armor. Why was
Europe. But there were also pieces of perfectly good armor thrown in
cone-shaped clay cooking pots like the trash? Maybe by the time it was
those the native tribes used. This tossed, the settlers felt safe enough in
suggests that the people of Jamestown their new homes that they no longer
needed heavy armor for protection.
What does your own trash say
about you? If a future archaeologist
art © 2019 by Rupert van Wyk

dug up your town dump, what

would they think about the people
who live there?
FFutur
t re archaeologists
will recognize the
worrld’s greatest
raccoon.

28
Hey, Sage! Caitlin T. in The rainbow is already in the
California wants to know, light! A prism just separates the
how does a prism make a colors. Light from the sun or a
rainbow? lamp is made up of many colors of
light rays. All together, we see
them as “white”.

After a storm, I sometimes see

rainbow colors in the sky.

Water droplets in the air act

like tiny prisms. Prisms separate
white light into the colors that
make it up.

How? All light travels as waves of energy. Each color light When light waves push through glass, they slow down
has its own wavelength. a bit and their paths bend. Shorter waves bend
more. So as light moves through a prism’s triangle
shape, the colors spread out—into a rainbow.

Cool!

Blue light travels in shorter waves. Red light has longer waves.
But they all travel at the same speed, the speed of light!

What are Helping Leprechauns. They can

you doing? bury their pots of gold at the
end of my rainbows!

ask 29

In our October issue we
asked you to make us a
poster celebrating the
glories of slime. Thanks
to all youeeew splendid
slime supporters for
sharing your shout-outs!
National Slime Day!
Sidney O., age 8,
Massachusetts
Dear Ask,
I am very worried about
plastic pollution. It is
everywhere! and it seems like
nobody cares. Can you please
help?
Sincerely,
Mia R.
30 ask
Meet Mr. Slime!
Anna K., age 11,
New York
Super Slime Hero!
Camden M., age 8,
Washington
Dear Mia,
WE care! I think lots of
people care, they just don’t
know what to do. But I think
if everyone does a little bit,
together we can do a lot. I’m
working on a special spray
that will dissolve plastic when
you say the magic word.
Explastico!
Plush
Send your letters to Ask Mail,
70 East Lake St., Suite 800, Chicago, IL
60601, or have your parent/guardian
email us at ask@cricketmedia.com.
Slime is Awesome!
Emily C., age 10,
California
Dear Marvin,
Do you know any tricks? If
you do, tell me. My common
trick is hiding, popping out,
and saying “boo!”.
Yours truly,
Lucas B.,
Rhode Island
Slime Rocks!
Niamh L.,
age 8, Queen of Slime!
New York Livi B., age 9,
California

Play with Slime

Maggie, age 6,
California
Slime is the Best!
Nathalie L.,
age 9,
Massachusetts

Super Slime!
Scarlet H.,
Slime is Awesome!
age 7,
Tony C., age 8,
New York
Texas

Dear Lucas, Dear Zia, Dear Gabriella,

I used to jump out at people
and say “BOO!” but now I
jump out and say “There
are millions of tons of
plastic floating in the ocean!”
AAAAaaaah! That’s very scary.
Use with caution,
Marvin
My favorite color is lavender.
What’s yours? I am also
learning to speak Filipino.
Bye for now,
Gabriella H.,
Washington
Lavender is very lovely! It
also smells nice, if you have a
lavender bush in your garden.
How do you say “lavender” in
Filipino? That might be a good
word to learn so you can get
the right color shoes and ice
cream.
Paalam,
Zia

ask PB
 March Contest

Recycled Art
Who decides what’s trash, and what’s art
supplies? Maybe you. For this month’s
contest, collect some interesting bits of
junk and use them to make a unique
piece of art. This kind of art is called
“found object art.” Snap a picture of
your recycled masterpiece, and we’ll
curate a collection of the most captivatin
in an upcoming issue of Ask.

Contest Rules:
1. Your contest entry must be your very
own work. Ideas and words should not
be copied.
2. Be sure to include your name, age, and
address on your entry.
3. Only one entry per person, please.
4. If you want your work returned, enclose
a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
5. Your entry must be signed or emailed
by a parent or legal guardian, saying it’s
your own work and that no one helped
you, and that Ask has permission to
publish it in print and online.
6. For information on the Children’s Online
Privacy Protection Act, see the Privacy
Policy page at cricketmedia.com.
7. Email scanned artwork to ask@cricket-
media.com, or mail to: Ask, 70 East Lake
St., Suite 800, Chicago, IL 60601. Entries
must be postmarked or emailed by March
31, 2019.
8. We will publish the winning entries in an
upcoming issue of Ask.

32 ask

Can you make an arrow change its mind?
Challenge your friends to a pointing
contest! Can they make an arrow
drawn on an index card reverse itself
without flipping over the card? You
can! If you have a handy glass.
What you’ll need
• A tall, clear drinking glass,
full of water
• An index card or piece of paper
• A marker
art by
Thor Wickstrom
What to do
1. With a marker, draw a thick arrow
on an index card (or any paper).
Make the pointy end nice and big.
2. Now, hold the card a couple of
inches behind the glass. Look at the
arrow through the glass of water.
3. And presto, the arrow will look like
it’s pointing the other way! If it isn’t,
move the card closer and farther
from the glass until it works.
What’s going on
As light passes through the glass and
water, its path bends. The glass acts like
a lens that reverses the image. The light
rays from the back of the arrow exit
the glass where the front should be, and
vice versa. So the arrow looks like it’s
decided to point the other way!
A glass of water
bends light like a lens.