I had the privilege of giving a presentation to the Science class at Frontier Collegiate in Cranberry Portage last week.
I enjoy presentations. The challenge is preparing them. They need to provide the information the audience wants to have and that I want them to know. It needs to be informative and interesting.
I start with an old presentation and add a few new things based on the audience. It usually begins with the facts that we are all travelers on spaceship earth and that everything we have comes from it. The three R’s of caring for our spaceship are reduce, reuse, recycle in that order.
There are pictures of what is recyclable and what is garbage which is useful information for at school and at home.
These students wanted to know where the recyclables go, and what they become so there were pictures of our Recycling Centre (which is a Materials Recovery Facility or MRF) and of the larger MRF we ship to in Winnipeg.
We talked about recycling cardboard and paper into new cardboard and paper products. Plastics become car parts, flooring, fleece clothing, stuffing for futons and new plastic. Metals can be recycled many times.
We also talked about recycling tires, household and vehicle batteries, electronics, tires used oil, and hazardous waste.
Many students came from smaller remote communities where materials must be shipped out over winter roads. I had some pictures from recycling organizations (PRO’s) who are working together to ship several different items on one trailer.
I shared a picture of the crew preparing old vehicles for shipping from St. Theresa Point. Relatives of two of the students were in the picture.
That was definitely cool.