Braden River, McNeal elementary students fill up on knowledge

His face pressed against the window of a school bus, Aiden Collins never had been on such a high hill before.

Let alone one made of trash.

During a field trip Dec. 1 to the Lena Road Landfill, the only dump site in Manatee County, Collins and 14 other Gilbert W. McNeal and Braden River elementary schools' students trekked up a 150-foot mountain of buried trash.

"This is so cool," Collins said, smiling. 

Noticing the children's excitement, Patrick Gallagher, the school district's energy and recycling specialist, flooded them with fun facts about "the dump."

"This is the highest point in Manatee County," Gallagher said to wide-eyed students.

Students learned about the importance of recycling and the landfill's primary purposes.

Each year, the school district hosted tours of the landfill for fourth-graders. Due to budget cuts in 2008, the landfill hasn't received much foot traffic from students since then.

The landfill has entered Phase Two of three phases that it will take to fill the site. Gallagher said it is important for students to learn ways to conserve space when it comes to dumping trash. 

"I'd say we have about 25 to 30 years left at this landfill before it's full," Gallagher said.

Although the fourth- and fifth-graders, who are members of their schools' robotics or engineering teams, aren't quite ready to solve that problem, they focused on smaller scale ones.

Braden River students are building robots, which they will program to pick up and throw away trash, as part of a robotics assignment, said robotics team coach Sue Curry.

McNeal students are working on bigger-picture problem-solving, such as how to reduce the amount of wasted milk cartons at their school and within the county.

Students are reviewing options for saving the cartons, such as implementing a "No Thank You Tray." Students can set untouched cartons there for another student to drink later.

McNeal teacher Denise Touchberry said her students received a "real world application" of where their trash goes after their parents set it on the curb to be hauled away twice a week.

"The kids have never seen anything like this landfill before," Touchberry said. "Kids don't get a chance to see things on a large scale like this."

Touchberry, whose son, Ramsey, attended Gene Witt Elementary School about 12 years ago, remembers her own experience at the site alongside her son.

They dug for sharks' teeth in a pile of trash that hadn't yet been buried.

Today, trash collected is buried within one hour of arriving at the site.

Throughout their tour of the landfill, students also stopped at the e-scrap shed, where old electronics are collected.

Old electronics don't just disappear, said Cari Walz, an employee of the Household Hazardous Waste division.

Sometimes the equipment or pieces, such as lithium batteries, can be recycled.

"It's interesting to see where our old stuff goes," Collins said. "I never paid much attention to where our trash went. This is really cool."