Where Does Your Trash Go?
You toss a banana peel and a juice box in the trash can. Poof — gone, right? Not quite! A truck comes, picks it up, and drives it somewhere far away. That banana peel might turn into dirt in just a few weeks. But that juice box? It could still be sitting in the same spot in 400 years — longer than anyone alive today will ever live!
What You'll Learn
- Where trash actually goes after the truck picks it up - The difference between things that rot (compost) and things that don't (landfill) - Why recycling gives some trash a second life - One easy habit that keeps trash out of oceans and parks
Three Places Trash Can Go
1. The Landfill: A giant hole in the ground where trucks dump trash, then bulldozers squish it flat and cover it with dirt. Plastic bottles can sit in a landfill for 450 years without rotting away. 2. The Recycling Center: Machines sort paper, cans, and some plastics. A crushed aluminum soda can gets melted down and can become a brand-new can on a store shelf in as little as 60 days. 3. The Compost Pile: Food scraps like apple cores and banana peels get piled up outside. Worms, bugs, and tiny microbes eat them and turn them into rich, dark soil in a few weeks to a few months.
A banana peel breaks down in about 2-5 weeks. A plastic water bottle takes about 450 years. That is why sorting your trash into the right bin actually matters!
Why Sorting Matters
When you put a soda can in the recycling bin instead of the trash, it skips the landfill completely. Instead, it gets melted down at a special factory and reshaped into something new — maybe even a bicycle part or another can! Sorting trash correctly is like giving objects a chance at a second life instead of getting buried forever.
Match each item to where it belongs.
Terms
Definitions
Drag terms onto their definitions, or click a term then click a definition to match.
About how long does a plastic bottle take to break down in a landfill?
What happens to a soda can at a recycling center?
Trash Sort Challenge
With a grown-up, gather 5 clean pieces of household trash (like a banana peel, a paper towel, a plastic wrapper, a can, and a cardboard box). Sort each one into 'Compost,' 'Recycle,' or 'Landfill.' Draw a picture of your 5 items under the correct heading and tell a family member one fact you learned about how long each item takes to break down.
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