Do you recycle? Recycling means you take used plastic, paper and metal, and turn it into clean new plastic, paper and metal. A lot of towns let us mix all our recycling in one bag. How do they unmix it all? This wild video shows how Philadelphia does it. Once the workers pull out big plastic toys and other non-recyclable junk, everything else flips and bounces over big turning gears. Paper floats up and away over the top, while heavier pieces fall down through the cracks. A huge vacuum sucks up all the plastic bags. Then a giant magnet pulls out all the metal cans. Every pound of that recycled paper or plastic saves enough energy to light a few light bulbs. So keep recycling!
Wee ones: If you recycle paper, plastic, glass and metal, how many materials are you recycling?
Little kids: If you throw a plastic bottle into the recycling bin, then a glass one, then a plastic and so on, what kind of bottle will the 8th one be? Bonus: If the tractor claw grabs 100 pounds at a time from the garbage truck, how many times does it need to grab to get 400 pounds?
Big kids: If they can pull out glass, metal, plastic, and paper in any order EXCEPT paper gets pulled first, in how many different orders can they pull stuff? Bonus: Every bottle you recycle saves enough energy to run a computer for 25 minutes! How much computer time do you get from saving 5 bottles?
Answers:
Wee ones: 4 materials.
Little kids: A glass bottle. Bonus: 4 times.
Big kids: The other 3 materials can fall in 6 orders: GMP, GPM, MGP, MPG, PGM, PMG. Bonus: 125 minutes.
