Where Does Your Trash Go? Following Garbage From Can to Landfill
Every time you toss a banana peel or an old juice box in the trash can, it starts a journey. A big truck comes, picks it up, and drives it somewhere far away. But where does it actually go? Let's follow one piece of trash from your kitchen all the way to its final stop!
- The path trash takes after it leaves your house - What a landfill is and how it is built - Why some trash takes years and years to disappear - One easy way to make less trash
- The path trash takes after it leaves your house - What a landfill is and how it is built - Why some trash takes years and years to disappear rn- One easy way to make less trash
Stop 1: The Garbage Truck
A big garbage truck drives down your street once or twice a week. It has strong metal arms that lift your trash can and dump it into the back. Inside the truck, a giant metal wall pushes and squishes all the trash tight together so the truck can carry more.
Stop 2: The Landfill
The truck drives to a special place called a landfill. A landfill is a giant, carefully built pit in the ground, lined with thick plastic and clay so trash juice cannot leak into the dirt and water below. Big machines called compactors drive over the trash to squish it flat, and at the end of each day, workers cover it with a layer of dirt so it does not smell or blow away.
Why Some Trash Never Really Goes Away
A banana peel breaks down and disappears in a few weeks. But a plastic water bottle can take 450 years to break down in a landfill! That is why the trash we make today can still be sitting in the ground when your great-great-great-grandchildren are alive.
Landfills release a gas called methane as trash breaks down underground. Some landfills now capture this gas and use it to make electricity for nearby homes instead of letting it escape into the air.
Before throwing something away, ask: can this be recycled or composted instead? Paper, cans, and bottles often belong in a recycling bin, and food scraps can go in a compost bin to turn into soil.
Match each item to about how long it takes to break down.
Terms
Definitions
Drag terms onto their definitions, or click a term then click a definition to match.
What is a landfill?
About how long does a plastic bottle take to break down in a landfill?
One-Day Trash Tracker
For one day, keep a small notepad and write down every single thing you throw away, recycle, or compost at home or school. At the end of the day, sort your list into three columns: Trash, Recycling, Compost. Circle one item from your Trash column and think of one way you could have avoided throwing it away (reusing it, recycling it, or not buying it in the first place). Share your idea with your class or family.
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