Tueaday Recycling Plant - Journal Entry #12

Today I went on a field trip with the two year three classes. Ms. Bell, one of the year three teachers invited me on the trip as an additional chaperone. She thought it might be nice to see a different age group of students at SIS and what they were studying.

In the morning we left for the recycling plant in Casares. Casares is an old Spanish town in the mountains right above Esapona. Unfortunately our bus driver thought that we needed to go up the mountain, but the recycling plant was at the bottom of the mountain. Oh well, nobody got car sick and there were some beautiful views! Casares is one of the most beautiful white villages. Ms. Bell was telling me that in the summer time there is a restaurant that you can go to and watch the sun set over the white village on the mountain. Most of the houses have blue shutters and when they pull them over the windows there is a beautiful blue glow over the town. I would love to see this, however I guess it is not open at night. Maybe sometime we will drive up there during the day for a relaxing coffee. I don’t think I will be trying the food, because Ms. Bell said their specialty and her favorite dish is the “black pudding” (pork blood) – I’ll pass thank you.
The year three students have been studying recycling as part of their inquiry on “our impact on the earth.” They have been learning about the importance of recycling and how to recycle.

When we got to the plant, there were three glass models of the area. The models showed how the plant has changed over the years. Basically they have made additions to that it does not smell so bad. For example, they put a cover over the compost pile and the drainage pools. They also installed some massive air freshener, they called it, that emits a pine sent before releasing the air back out into the atmosphere. The tour guide was a young woman, who I thought did a very good job with the presentation; however it was all in Spanish! Ms. Charlotte, the other year four teachers translated, but it was fun trying to translate the Spanish before Ms. Charlotte explained it in English. It was interesting to hear the Spanish terms as well as the British terms used. For example, I heard a lot of “reciclar” (to recycle), “reducer” (to reduce), and “basura” (trash). Then translated in English I heard “rubbish” (trash) and the “bin” (garbage can). How confusing to have to translate my own language! =]

After explaining the glass models of the factory we moved into another room with chairs and we watched a movie that showed the different parts of the factory including the large tunnels that separate the trash, the compressor, and the giant claw or “pulpa” in Spanish which translated means octopus.

At this particular plant only organic material is recycled by placing it in a giant compost pile. The other materials like “aluMINIum” as they say, glass, and cardboards are shipped to another area. The materials that we have not figured out how to recycle yet are carefully placed in a mountain they are creating. They put layers of thick plastic to protect the soil and trap all of the liquids then a layer of trash, followed by a layer of dirt then another layer of trash. Eventually they will have a mountain of trash basically but they plan to cover it with grass and landscape so it looks nice.

After the video, the tour guide showed multiple examples of toys or household products that you could make out of recycled materials. Some examples were pencil holders, bowling pins, kids catching mitts/scoops, toy cars, show boots etc. Then she picked a student from the audience to go through a bin of trash and she had to appropriately sort the material into the six colored bins. Glass went into the “verde” (green) bin, paper in the “azul” (blue bin), plastics and aluminum in the “Amarillo” (yellow) bin, clothes in the “rojo” (red bin), rubbish in the “negro” (black bin), appliances in the “punto limpio blanko” (special white bin) and _______________________________.

Next she talked about the large percentage of your trash that can be reduced if you recycle. I thought that the tour was very well done and interactive. At the end she handed out some goodie bags. In the bags were extra bags that could be reused for shopping or whatever instead of the plastic bags. There was an apron, bag, and notebook all made of recycled materials.

To end the tour we went around on the bus and were able to see the different parts of the plant that we had learned about. It was funny when we passed the compressed cardboard area. One student said, “Hey look a Wheatabix box!” Wheatabix is a very popular cereal here. Back at the house we joke about it because there are commercials for it all over the television, but now we are all buying it at the market, its pretty good!

Before heading back to the school we stopped at a park to have lunch and let the students run around. After lunch I helped separate all of the garbage from the students’ lunches so that it could be properly recycled – gross job.
On the way back the students were singing a song in Spanish. It is very similar to the song we have back home, “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” I understood the whole thing except for one word. I later found out it was the reflexive verb for peeing oneself, great. So this is how the song went translated in English.

“Who peed themselves if their sleeping bag?” - Group
“Georgia peed herself in her sleeping bag?” - Group
“Who me?” – Georgia
“Yes you?” – Group
“Couldn’t be!” – Georgia
“Then who?” – Group

Spanish:
“Quien __________ en el saco de dormi?”


Awesome, haha…but got really annoying after 20 minutes of it.