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SACRED HEART’S LOOK INTO “ WAR ON WASTE” 2021

Name……………………………………………
In the War on Waste episode called “Coffee cups- A garbage nightmare”, the presenter used a tram full of
coffee cups to demonstrate how many coffee cups are THROWN AWAY every half hour. 50,000 disposable
cups are used every half hour. An estimated 1.2 billion (1 200 000 000) coffee cups are used in Australia
every year- these are not recycled. This is enough to circumnavigate the world two and a half times.
Section A: Perusing the figures: ( 7 marks)
This is an important message as to why we should bring our own reusable cups (like the SHGC ones) when
we go to coffee shops. To bring these figures to a scale that we can imagine, let’s look at 7 Eleven for
example.
Question 1 ( 2 marks)
They are working on a system to help recycle the 70 million coffee cups they sell each year.
(I) How many is this per day?_____________________

(II) How many is this per hour? ____________________

It’s important for each of us to start to make some changes. Some people have already started. It’s hard to
track all changes already made to help this situation, for every café, but let’s look at Lydia’s café which, on
average, serves 35 cups of take away coffee per hour.
(Assume the café is open from 7am-3pm every day.)

Question 2 (2 marks)

(i) Find how many coffee cups are ordered weekly. Note: 100 plastic cups cost 5 dollars; orders are in lots
of 100s.

__________________________________________________________________________________

(ii) Calculate the total cost of purchase of plastic coffee cups, over a one week period.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Question 3 (1 mark)

Lydia is happy to offer her customers a new deal. Her cafe offers a 50 cent discount from $4 if a buyer
brings her own reusable cup. Find the percentage discount on the cost of a coffee order.

________________________________________________________________________________
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Question 4 (2 marks)

Lydia is happy that less coffee cups are used and the weekly cup order decreases by 30%.

(i) Find the new amount of cups Lydia orders, remembering that 100 plastic cups cost 5 dollars; orders are
in lots of 100s.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

(ii) How much money will Lydia save on cups per week?
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SECTION B: RECYCLING AND WASTE ( 9 marks)

The “war on waste” program tells us that whether coffee cups are recyclable or not is one of the most
controversial questions at the moment.
Question 1 (1 mark)
Paper coffee cups account for only 0.5% of the 3.2 million tonnes of paper consumed in Australia every
year. How many tonnes does this represent?

Question 2 (2 marks) Using ratios

Of the 76 tonnes of total solid waste generated in Australia in 2018-19, the proportion of waste to each
category is shown as follows:

 20 tonnes landfilled waste

 40 tonnes recycled waste
 2.5 tonnes Energy recovery waste
 4 tonnes Exports
 Other (remaining)
Write a simplified ratio of this Waste Management. (2 marks)
Landfilled : Recyled : Energy recovery : Export : Other

Question 3 (3 Marks)
If the total amount of solid waste generated 2018-19 was 76 million tonnes, and the ratio of
waste landfill: waste to recycled: waste other(total) is
5 : 10 : 4
How much waste (in million tonnes) goes to: (correct to 2 decimal places)
(i) waste landfill? ____________________________
(ii) waste to recycled? ____________________________
(iii) waste other? ____________________________

Question 4 ( 3 marks)
Currently in Australian on average per person 1.6 tonnes of waste is sent to landfill per year.
The allocation of waste per person is as following.
waste landfill: waste to recycled: waste other(total) is
5 : 10 : 4
How much waste per person (in tonnes) goes to :
(i) waste landfill? __________________________
( ii) waste to recycled? ___________________________
(ii) waste other? ____________________________
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Section C: Graphical analysis of waste (27 marks) :

Question 1 - (10 marks)
We have extracted some information from 1996-2011 about how much waste Australia has generated each
year and shown this in a linear graph below. From this, answer the following questions:

(i) Find the gradient of the graph above. (1 mark)

______________________________________________________________

(ii) Interpret what the gradient means. (1 mark)

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

(iii) Find the y-intercept of the graph above. (1 mark)

__________________________________________________________________

(iv) Hence, what is the equation of the graph if 𝑥 is the number of years from 1996? (1mark)

_________________________________________________________________

(v) Use this equation to find the approximate amount of waste for 2018 and compare this to the
1996 value. (2 marks)

______________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________
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(vi) Use the equation to calculate the projected percentage increase in waste generation from 1996
to 2036. Explain the significance of this percentage. (4 marks)

____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Question 2: (7 marks)
Taking another look at the graph, answer the questions below:

(i) Find the approximate amount of waste for:

a) the year 2018
___________________________________________________________________________

b) the year 1996. (2 marks)

___________________________________________________________________________

(ii) calculate the projected percentage increase in waste generation from (2 marks):
1996 to 2036 :

________________________________________________
(iii) The percentage increase from 2018 to 2036 by 55.7%. How do these figures compare- what do they
actually mean about the increase? (1 mark)

_____________________________________________________________ ________________

________________________________________________________________________________
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(iv) How does the population increase compare with the waste percentage increase? (2 marks)

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

Question 3: (4 marks)

The statistics for 2018-19 for these 3 categories of general waste are:
 Waste generated is 78.5 million tonnes
 Landfill waste is 20.5 million tonnes
 Waste recycled is 45 million tonnes

a) Plot 2018-19 on the above graph for each of these (3 marks)

b) Comment on the trends seen for: (1 mark)
i) Waste generated _________________________________________________

ii) Landfill waste_____________________________________________________

iii) Waste recycled ___________________________________________________

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PLASTIC WASTE:

Why do you think we are producing so much more plastic now, than in 1996? (1 mark)

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________
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Question 4: (2 marks)

Water bottles are another issue to be brought to your attention. Let’s just look at a few figures.
Read this quote:

Using the information in the quote above and an estimation of 370 million tonnes as the approximate
value for 2020, can you make the following predictions (in tonnes)?

Question 5: (2 marks)

What percentage of all plastic bottles expected to be produced in 2020 will be recycled into new plastic
bottles?

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Question 6: (1 mark)

What is the total number of plastic bottle (in million tonnes) expected to be reached in 2021?

_________________________________________________________________________________
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Section D: Take Action on Plastic Waste on Australia (10 marks)

Plastic waste 2018-2019 (source ABS)

 2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste generated

 Population of Australia: 25 million people

a. Work out how many kilograms of plastic waste per person. (1 tonne = 1000kg) Show workings. (2 marks)

b. Only 9% of plastic waste each year is recycled, find the amount (kg) plastic waste recycled each year per
person. (1 mark)

c. Find the amount of plastic (kg) per person that goes to land fill each year. (1 mark)

d. Plastic waste (million tonnage) in 2018-19 decreased by 3% since 2016-17

i. Calculate the amount it was in 2016-17 ( 1 mark)

___________________________________________________________________________________

ii. Find the difference in the amount of plastic waste (per million tonnes) that was generated between the
2016/17 and 2018-19 figures correct to two decimal places. (2 marks)

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

iii. convert this amount into kilograms ( 1 mark)

_______________________________________________________________________________
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e. The average person could be ingesting 2000 tiny pieces of plastic every
week – the equivalent of a credit card – with drinking water the largest source
which is over 250g annually.

i) Given that single use plastic bags have been banned, comment on the use of plastic, keeping in
mind the figure you just calculated from part diii.

___________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________ (1 mark)

ii) Can you think of anything else that could decrease our plastic waste? (1 mark)

____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

END OF ASSIGNMENT
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