Schools Get Smart About Trash
by Greg Ellis
A few wise teachers and administrators in San Luis Obispo county have been looking in an unlikely place to enhance education at their schools – the trash. Where some see mere waste, these innovators see more – wasted resources, wasted money, and wasted educational opportunities. Here are a few of the successes and challenges in two Paso Robles Unified School District schools for those who wish to increase recycling and composting.
For the past six months nonprofit One Cool Earth has worked closely with Georgia Brown Elementary school in Paso Robles to give the school's waste-handling systems a make-over. Already, many changes have been created in collaboration with the local waste handler Paso Robles Waste, the area waste regulatory agency Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA), the US Green Building Council's local chapter, school parents, administrators, local businesses, and above all students. Principal Ellalina Emrich Keller recognized that schools should cultivate a positive future for students not only by providing them with a proper education, but also by taking care of natural resources. Students are the reason and the means for many of the changes taking place at the school.
Education is king at schools and so the most important of Georgia Brown Elementary's transformations are taking place in the minds of students. A week long Waste Awareness Week, supported by USGBC, IWMA, PR Waste, and OCE took place to kick off the school's waste reduction measures. Students were treated to games and presentations that helped illuminate the consequences of throwing stuff away. IWMA brought in a giant model of a worm to demonstrate worm composting, OCE organized a game where melon rinds were tossed into the mouth of a worm cutout, and a trash-dash helped kids sort waste between recycling, composting, and landfill bins. Students also participated in a "waste audit" to sort and weigh one day's worth of trash, assessing how much could be recycled, composted, or avoided. Parents received letters and trainings to help reduce waste in packed lunches.
Many more tangible changes have been made as well. A recycling system has been implemented in every classroom to collect paper, plastic, aluminum, and other mixed recyclables thanks to bins donated by IWMA. J. Lohr donated plastic macro bins to serve as homes for red wiggler worms that have begun composting up to 30 pounds of lunch waste every day. This is a rather amazing accomplishment, given that each of the 550 students at the school must manually separate their leftovers into compostables, recyclables, and trash after lunch. With stewardship from OCE's star staff person Victoria Carranza, group of dedicated school staff, parents, teachers, and student mentors see to the task. Because recycling pickup is currently free in the city of Paso Robles, these combined efforts stand to reduce the school's waste hauling fees by half. While the numbers are forthcoming, it could reach into several thousand dollars per year!
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But the transformation of trash isn't coming out entirely roses. A couple of major obstacles stand in the way. First, most schools in the nation still use styrofoam lunch trays. The trays are cheap and technically styrofoam is recycleable. But most recyclers will not take styrofoam that has touched food due to contamination issues. Thus, hundreds of thousands of trays are thrown out in Paso Robles alone every year. Switching to compostable or reusable trays is a tough option to justify in the cash-strapped school districts where money could go to hire teachers and support staff. The only solution at Georgia Brown so far is to reduce the volume that the trays use in a dumpster by stacking them neatly.
Daniel Lewis Middle School is another shining star in the movement to curb school waste. Under the direction of teacher Jim Roether and with support from One Cool Earth, a student-run recycling program saves tons of waste from the landfill annually. In addition, several 6th and 7th graders volunteer a part of their lunch time to oversee a compost collection program. Compost is processed in on-site worm bins.
Roether has taken styrofoam trays very seriously. While he and his students do stack the trays, they still aren't content seeing them thrown away. Instead, Roether has put the challenge to his 6th grade GreenTech and 7th grade EnviroTech classes to invent new uses for the trays. Several projects are in the work that refashion the trays into insulative lids for worm bins, create insulation for solar ovens, and even one project to create structural panels for a greenhouse. Roether's class has calculated that over 21,000 trays will be used at their school alone.
Many efforts like these are taking place at other school's around the county. Much credit goes to Jim DeChecko in Oceano for his exemplar worm-composting system which has done much to inform and inspire others. The key to all of this work is partnerships between school teachers, staff and administrators, local agencies, businesses, parents, and especially students. Thanks go out to all who have in the past and who continue to participate in these efforts to prepare our students for a truly bright future.
Resources
USGBCC
PR waste
IWMA
JLOHRl
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