What’s that smell?

Walking around HHS, you may have seen–or smelled–students carrying plastic bags of trash with them everywhere they go. You, like many others, are probably wondering why.

Mr. John Sammler, science, is the teacher responsible for this pact of garbage carriers and wants students to realize how much waste they produce every day. Sammler’s AP Environmental Science class began this experiment on Nov. 7 and finished on Nov. 14.

“We are doing a unit on trash and how people dispose of things. Statistics show that an average American throws away almost five pounds of trash every day, so by doing this lesson, it forces students to think more about their waste disposal because most garbage can actually be recycled or composted,” Sammler said.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash daily. This equates to about 1,600 pounds of trash each year. Multiply that by the entire U.S. population and you would have enough garbage to form a line of filled up garbage trucks that reach the moon.

“The amount of trash Americans produce is awful. We’re lazy and we don’t take our trash very seriously. We need to be thinking more every time we throw something away,” Sammler said.

Ally Davis, senior, is in Sammler’s AP Environmental Science class and has been carrying her daily garbage everywhere she goes for over a week.

“We are carrying around garbage because in my APES class we are discussing the harmful effects of plastic and other wastes. We want to be aware of our garbage production and how we can cut down on how much waste we produce,” Davis said.

What many Americans don’t realize is that 60 percent of household trash can be recycled, however the average American only recycle 13 percent of their household trash, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Davis believes that by carrying her garbage with her, she will become more aware of how she disposes of it and hopes others will take notice as well.

“It makes me feel more aware of how much garbage I produce each day and how I should properly dispose of it,” Davis said. “Hopefully other people notice what we’re doing and make a change themselves.”

Landfills in the U.S. are not getting any smaller and Sammler believes that Americans need to make a change, before it’s too late.

“The U.S. is falling behind in clean waste disposal. Countries like France are taking big initiatives in waste disposal such as banning complete sale of all plastic cutlery, plates, and cups and replacing them with compostable materials. We should be pushing the ball forward, rather than being rolled over by it,” Sammler said.