School Composting Program Cuts Waste
The Environmental Center worked with Bear Creek Elementary School to implement a program to compost 100% of their cafeteria food waste. In the first week alone, the school kept 460 pounds of waste out of the landfill.
Bear Creek Elementary Green Team monitoring the cafeteria waste stations
Bear Creek Elementary students are proving to be a model school by being the first school to compost all of their food waste. The school, partnering with The Environmental Center, Cascade Disposal, and Deschutes Recycling, developed a system to collect all food waste separately and send it to the composting facility at Deschutes Recycling. In the first week alone, they composted 460 pounds of food waste!
The Bear Creek "Green Team" students, easily seen with their bright green hats, oversee the lunchtime program and volunteer at the waste stations. Each waste station in the cafeteria has a bin for recycling, a bin for food waste and a trash can. As students are excused after eating lunch, they approach the stations and with help from the Green Team, put everything in the right containers. ALL food is collected, including leftover milk, meat, even pizza and those omnipresent chicken nuggets. In addition to the food composting, the school is also able to recycle clean food serving "boats", thus reducing their lunchtime garbage even more. Plastic utensils are also collected and put into a bag so they can be recycled separately.
The effort is one piece of the Bend-La Pine Schools Sustainability Plan that outlines "zero waste" as one of the long term sustainability goals for the district. The cafeteria tends to be the biggest waste generator in a school, so this program has the potential to divert a lot of waste from the landfill. And by fine tuning the garbage service provided by Cascade Disposal, the schools can potentially save money by recycling and composting as much as possible.
As part of the program, students and staff are educated about the importance of recycling and composting. Lessons are incorporated into math and science and correlate to Oregon State Education Standards. As Katrina Wiest, Bend-La Pine Schools Wellness Coordinator says, "We're changing the culture. These kids are the future of our community." Stay tuned for more schools adopting this program!
