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New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund
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 Neat Definitions You Should Know
Biodegradable: Materials that decompose (rot), usually by bacteria or sunlight, into their original organic parts in a fairly short time. Most organic materials (paper, food scraps, leaves in your yard) are biodegradable under the right conditions.
Compost: This is an earthy, sweet-smelling mix of decomposing organic things (food scraps, leaves) that can be used make your garden or vegetable patch better for growing things.
Decompose: This is what happens to food and other plant and animal life with the right conditions of light, air and moisture.
Energy: This means the ability to do work. You have the energy to mow the lawn, for example. But in science and the environment energy usually means light, heat, electricity and the chemical energy found in fuels such as gasoline (its energy is released when it burns).
Garbage: Stuff that is thrown away because it doesn't work anymore and is too expensive or impossible to reuse, repair or recycle.
Greenhouse Gases: Gas (carbon dioxide and methane are just two) in the atmosphere that allows sunlight to reach earth but prevents heat from leaving the earth. Scientists believe they play a big role in global warming.
Household Hazardous Waste: This is leftover or unused products used in the home that, because of what they're made of, can be dangerous to people, plants and animals. Paint, chemicals used in the garden, and some household cleansers are examples of household hazardous waste. They need to be handled with care and disposed of in a special way.
Leachate: A mixture of water and materials that are leaching.
Leaching: The process in which materials in or on the soil gradually dissolve and are carried away by water seeping through the soil. Modern landfills have special liners to keep leachate from getting into the surrounding environment.
Mulch: Usually a mixture of vegetable matter spread around or over plants to improve the soil, keep the plants from getting too cold, or prevent weeds from growing.
Municipal Solid Waste Landfill: A waste storage site constructed above a layer of clay and lined with special material. It also has ways to deal with the liquid and gas that come from the stuff in the landfill.
Natural Resources: Materials used to make products, generate heat and produce electricity. Water and trees are really important natural resources.
Organic: All living things, and products that are specially produced by living things, such as wood (trees), leather (cows) and sugar (sugar cane and sugar beet plants).
Solid Waste: Stuff thrown away as garbage and handled as a solid, which is different than liquid waste that you flush down sewers.
Virgin Material: Stuff like natural resources that hasn't been made into anything yet. A tree cut down to make paper is virgin material. When you recycle that paper it's called recovered material. | |
