Now that you've begun to implement your recycling plan it is important to organize the data you collect into a form that will let you look for trends. Depending on how complex your recycling program is, you may generate a lot of data and decide to create different types of graphs that help you to tell the story behind the numbers. To help you begin to wade through the data you've collected this part of The Recycle Challenge is divided into three parts:

• Deciding on the kinds of graphs to create from the data and creating the graphs.

• Conducting waste audits to spot check how well people are recycling.

• Modifying the plan based on what your data tells you.

Depending on how closely you want to look at your data, you may generate few or many graphs. Regardless of the number of graphs you create, or waste audits you conduct, the products of your work here will make up an important part of your final presentation. The old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words, is an important one to keep in mind–data presented in a graph is much easier to understand.