7 December, 2001

Temp: -3 C, +27 F With wind chill -19 C, 0 F

I neglected to mention in my last journal entry, the winners of the waste management contest. There was only one category with a winner, the elementary. Ms. Garland's second grade class at Rose Ave. Elementary School in Washington Court House, Ohio. Congratulations!

Here are their categories: aluminum cans, paper & cardboard, glass, plastic, tin cans, styrofoam, fabric, rubber, wood, solid waste/garbage(all the food left over). They were almost perfect! paper and cardboard is actually 3 separate categories here: white paper, cardboard, and mixed paper. There is one for food waste. The rest of the solid wastes are classified as construction debris. Instead of fabric we have clothing. In addition to these we also have bins for burnables, light metals, heavy metals, batteries, biological wastes, and magazines/newspapers. Why so many categories?

Well, as I have said before, any country working in Antarctica is required to take their garbage back to their own country and dispose of it there. The US tries to recycle as much as possible. Also, it is much easier to package and send these things when they are sorted into groups. One of the major goals of the US Antarctic program is to keep Antarctica clean and pristine, so that it remains a perfect place to do research. Believe it or not, this all fits right into our project. We are trying to determine the extent to which humans and science operationshave damaged the environment at McMurdo. Our initial findings indicate that pollution is not increasing and is well below acceptable standards. So, I seems that being waste-minded has paid off. Waste management is taken very seriously here.

These are the waste bins found in front of almost all buildings at McMurdo. Some buildings have more, some have less. They do make recycling and waste disposal as easy as possible.

This garbage can says it all. It's the goal of management at McMurdo, The United State Antarctic Program and our project.