Why are there so many rusty old vehicles in Sandland?

By the six prize-winners from Primary 1 – 4 in Sandland School in Finnmark; Nysgjerrigper 2004.

I wonder why!

In autumn 2003 a journalist was writing about how people were leaving the Loppa district in northern Norway. While he was working on his article he noticed a green bus that had been abandoned in a field. The journalist went to Sandland School to ask whether any of the school’s research-oriented pupils could find out why it was there. The pupils gladly accepted the challenge, because everyone had seen the bus and had wondered why it stood there.

On their way to inspect the bus, the pupils noticed a lot of other vehicles and old lumps of scrap near the road-side. Suddenly they had a research project: Why do we have so many old, rusting cars in Sandland?

Why have things turned out like this?

Could it be because:

• Some people just like rusty cars?

• Some people keep rusty cars in order to use their spare parts to repair other old cars?

• Some people cannot be bothered to take their old cars to the nearest town’s rubbish dump?

• Because it is expensive to take cars that don’t work to the scrap heap?

Draw up a plan for the investigation!

The first thing that they decide to do is to carry out a study among everyone at school, at home and everyone else who lives in Sandland. They decide to register and measure all the rusting vehicles. They want to take photos of them and measure them in order to find how far they would stretch if they laid them end to end.

Vehicle wrecks usually end up at the city rubbish dump in Alta. The pupils would like to visit the dump in order to interview the people who work there. But it is a long, expensive trip, so they apply to the Nysgjerrigper Fund for money to travel to Alta. Nysgjerrigper agrees to support them, and they prepare for the trip. Among other things, the pupils want to find out who is responsible for making sure that rusting vehicles are taken to the scrap heap. Does it cost a lot? and what happens to cars once they are brought to the dump?

Gathering information!

The young researchers carry out their questionnaire study and begin to register the wrecks. They find more and more rusty abandoned vehicles; cars, tractors and caravans. They note down a total of 49 vehicles which have been more or less abandoned out in the wild. Every vehicle is given a number, and they take photographs and write up what sort of condition the vehicle is in. They note broken windows, punctured types, rust and dents in bumpers. By the time they have measured 35 of the 49 vehicles, they have already used 155 metres of string.

It turns out that the rubbish dump is a long way off. It takes a two-hour ferry trip and a drive of 140 kilometres to get to Alta, where they find out that old vehicles can be taken to a dump that is closer to Sandland than Alta, and that owners are paid NOK 1500 even for cars that have not been licensed for many years. The problem is that the owners themselves have to organise transport for their old cars.

Once a year, a machine comes to crush old cars into small blocks of metal. These are sent to Germany, where they are recycled into nails and other useful metal objects. The most interesting information that the pupils get to hear is that the previous year, there had been a big vehicle collection campaign, which was paid for by local councils. Four hundred tonnes of old cars were brought in from West Finnmark. But few of them came from Loppa, because the local council was short of money.

The trip to Alta gives the pupils plenty to discuss. Not least, they need to find out whether the council took part in last year’s vehicle collection campaign.

What we found out!

The answers to the questionnaire strengthen the hypothesis that rusting vehicles are not removed because people cannot be bothered to take them to the dump, and that it is too expensive and too far to send them to the dump.

In Loppa, the mayor confirms that the council is short of money, but that the owners of abandoned vehicles are responsible for removing them. If the pupils will help to find out who owns the cars, the council will put pressure on the owners to remove them. For its part, the waste collection company says the local council is responsible for removing vehicle wrecks whose owners are unknown – but that this costs NOK 500 per wreck. The company promises in turn to put pressure on the council to have the vehicles removed. With promises like these, the prospects are good for a “rust-free” town.

Tell everyone else!

This project has thus led the pupils into another project: how to make sure that these rusting vehicles are taken away from Sandland. They are already looking forward to getting on with their next project.

The young researchers have written an easy-to-read report with drawings, photos, tables and text, and have produced a work of art with the string they used to measure the vehicles. What was the work of art? A rusty car, of course!

The pupils have won the Nysgjerrigper Prize for 2004 for their impressive and socially useful piece of research.