Waste management on the Berlage Lyceum

Lulu Stoter
Isis Witziers
Graham Shipanz
Fjodor Aquina

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 Index
● Interview with students
● Interview with a recycle company
● Waste management in the Netherlands
● Waste management on the Berlage Lyceum
● Collaboration with India
● Reflection and conclusion
● End

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 Interview with students
Unfortunately, we could not interview the students in real life, because of the pandemic. We
send the students a google form. The google form was Accidentally anonymous, so we don't
have the names of the students.
We interviewed the students about their opinion about rubbish.

Do you think younger students produce more rubbish then younger students?
Student 1: No.
Student 2: No.
Student 3: Yes.
Student 4: Yes.
Student 5: No.
Student 6: Yes.
Student 7: No.
Student 8: No.
Student 9: No.
Student 10: No.

Do you think boys produce more rubbish then girls?

Student 1: Yes.
Student 2: Yes.
Student 3: No.
Student 4: No.
Student 5: No.
Student 6: Yes.
Student 7: No.
Student 8: Yes.
Student 9: Yes.
Student 10: No.

What kind of rubbish is being produced by students at school?

Student 1: A Lot of different rubbish. Plastic, paper, aluminium, etc.
Student 2: I think mostly plastic and drinking cans.
Student 3: Plastic, paper and drinking cans.
Student 4: I think almost every rubbish material you can think of.
Student 5: Plastic, because most things like packages and wrapping papers are plastic.
Student 6: Drinking cans and candy wrappers.
Student 7: Food and food packages, but also paper.
Student 8: Paper, plastic, carton, aluminium and a lot more.
Student 9: Probably mostly paper because every student uses paper, the tests and the
printing machine uses a lot of paper too.
Student 10: I think plastic, because almost everyone uses something of plastic in the
cafeteria.

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What happens with the rubbish? What happens with the rubbish after breaks?
Student 1: It is thrown away or thrown on the ground.
Student 2: At school we have special bins for different types of rubbish.
Student 3: The rubbish is thrown in the bins.
Student 4: It’s thrown in the bins with different parts where you can put in different materials.
Student 5: It is thrown away in the bins, but i don’t know what happens after.
Student 6: The trash is going to a special place where all rubbish is collected and then
burned or reused.
Student 7: I don’t exactly know.
Student 8: It is thrown in the bins at school.
Student 9: I think in the bins but also a lot of rubbish on the ground.
Student 10: It is brought to a dumping ground.

Are students involved in collecting the rubbish, in cleaning the canteens?

Student 1: Yes, a little bit.
Student 2: No, students just have to throw away their garbage.
Student 3: Yes and no, because it is also our responsibility to keep the school clean, but we
only have to clean sometimes in the 1st year and throw away your trash.
Student 4: Sort of.
Student 5: Yes.
Student 6: Yes, because in school we have bins where you can put in different materials,
and it is our responsibility to actually do that.
Student 7: No, because I don’t feel like it is a responsibility, but more a thing that you are
already supposed to do.
Student 8: No.
Student 9: I think it is both our and the teachers their responsibility.
Student 10: I think that it is our responsibility, because if the school is dirty, it is the fault of
the students.

Why are some students throwing rubbish on the ground?

Student 1: Because they are lazy.
Student 2: Because they are probably trying to be cool for their friends.
Student 3: They are either lazy or they want to act cool.
Student 4: Maybe because they don’t care about the consequences.
Student 5: probably because they don't know about why it is so bad.
Student 6: I think because of various reasons.
Student 7: Maybe because they are too lazy to throw away their garbage.
Student 8: I don’t know.
Student 9: Laziness.
Student 10: Because they are lazy or they don’t know about the consequences.

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 Interview with a recycle company
For this project, we also had to interview a recycle company. We interviewed JOWA, a metal
recycling company. We did that and asked them the questions. Because of the pandemic,
we could not visit any companies, so we looked on the internet for recycle companies, and
called them on the phone. Through the phone, we asked the questions, and talked about
waste management together.

- Are there any methods to recycle waste at school/ separate garbage?

Maybe garbage separation already happens at your school, by putting different cans for
plastic, paper, etc. But our company is a metal recycling company, so we really specialize in
separating metals and recycling metals. But drinking cans are made of aluminium or iron. So
it could be an idea to separate drinking cans in iron drinking cans and aluminium drinking
cans.
Recycling waste is a little bit harder, because it requires a lot of input, which is hard to do
when you have a school with a lot of students. But you can reuse garbage for an art project,
or something like that.
- Which methods can be used to limit the amount of rubbish? Name at least two​.
You can do this for yourself, by for example buying less prepackaged products. But this is
also kind of hard to do at school, but you can limit the amount of garbage by not wrapping
sandwiches in plastic, but if you really want to make a big change, you can stop selling foods
like chips and candy, and tell your students to bring lunch boxes instead of plastic bags.

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 Waste management in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands, there is a good program to manage waste. When you gather different
kinds of waste together at home, you can separate waste yourself. You can do that in
different containers of plastic, glass, paper, textiles, and trash all have separate collection
containers. So when you have different places to put all these kinds of waste, and you go for
example grocery shopping, and put them in the different containers. Beyond this, grocery
stores have smaller collection points for household items such as batteries, light bulbs, and
small electronics. Large grocery stores also have a bottle deposit scheme for larger plastic
bottles, beer bottles, and beer crates. You pay the deposit fee when you purchase these
items and receive the deposit back once you submit the bottle for a deposit. That makes it
more interesting to bring back their items.
After your trash has been separated by yourself, it goes through another separation process.
Most trash is being recycled or used with another purpose. Old plastic is for example used
for new plastic bottles, tennis balls, sleeping bags, crates and toys. Recycling plastic saves
petroleum, because the main raw material to create plastic is petroleum. From used drinking
packs, we make cardboard boxes, tissues, wallpaper and toilet paper.
There are a lot more sides to this process, but that is too much to write down, but you can
always look on the internet for more information.

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 Waste management on the Berlage lyceum:
On the berlage lyceum, there are different ways that help a good water management. We
have three different garbage cans: for plastic, for paper and for ​residual waste. For example
you have a plastic bag or a plastic bottle you throw it in the plastic garbage can. We also had
an explanation on how to separate trash, so we would know where each material
belongs.This way of separating trash is important, because it's better for the environment
and in that way it is processed correctly. There is also another measure to make waste
management better. If you buy a plastic bowl with noodles you pay 1,-. when you have
finished your noodles, you can bring the plastic bowl back to the cafeteria and get 0,50,-
back for returning the plastic bowl. This prevents the plastic getting in the wrong place where
it doesn't belong (environment, wrong garbage cans etc).
We also had a day at school where no one can bring plastic to school. So for example no
plastic pouches for sandwiches and no water bottle from plastic. This is a good way to show
that there is a danger if we keep using this amount of plastic, and it prevents that plastic from
entering the environment.

Sadly because of the pandemic, we weren’t able to visit the school and take pictures of the
waste. However, we were able to find some pictures of the waste bins at our school and the
rules for the different materials of the rubbish.

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 Collaboration with India
The collaboration with India, unfortunately did not work very well. There was some
miscommunication, and everytime we asked something they did not reply, or deleted their
messages. They also said they were going to answer later, when they never said anything.
Also when we asked again, they read our texts but did not reply again. This is really
unfortunate, because otherwise we could have compared the waste management in India or
waste management at the Indian school and the waste management in the Netherlands. We
also could have learned something from it or brainstormed to improve waste management in
India.

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 Reflection and conclusion
In the end, we think we have learned about waste management in general in the
Netherlands and at school. We had interviews and saw different ideas on certain
subjects, we did research and learned more about waste management at our school.
On the other hand, it is unfortunate that the collaboration with India did not go as well
as we had hoped. Also, because of the pandemic everything was very limited and
we could not interview people in person, take pictures, etc. That would have made
this experience way more fun! But we can not do a lot about it, and we have to be
glad that we learned something about waste management. We hope that you have
also learned something that you did not know yet in our report. And always
remember to try to recycle as much as you can and be your best self on the subject
of waste management!

End.