School Cafeteria Waste

For the past four months, I’ve helped an elementary school, here in Walnut Creek, with lunch recycling, composting and trash sorting.  Quite an ordeal I have to say. Children needed to be reminded of what has to be done, signs have to be up constantly, and someone needs to be there to check and make sure that they follow them.

I found the younger grades, 1st, 2nd and 3rd, to be the best, the 4th and 5th, the most unruly. I guess they just like to stand out and break the rules.  I could easily reach these kids and explain the purpose of trash sorting, but there was another aspect that I couldn’t really address. Every day I was dismayed by the amount of avoidable trash that was brought in from home, as well as the number of perfectly edible food that was thrown away untouched.

Home made sandwiches still in Ziploc bags, barely nibbled. Entire fruit: apples, pears, oranges, bananas,  and the number of containers that could be replaced by something reusable. But mostly, I counted the number of ½ pint milk cartons that were thrown away still full, or barely used: about a third of the milk was wasted.

There is a lot that parents can learn from this. One is to talk to children about the trash generated, hunger around the world and the food they throw away, then, to talk about the resources needed to provide for this food. Moreover, parents could package their sons’ and daughters’ lunches in packaging that can be reused. Ziploc bags, for once, should be reused or eliminated entirely. Drinks could be bought in large containers and poured into a reusable bottle. I’ll add more about this in my next posts.

So here is what I’ve done. For four days, I stayed in the cafeteria after lunch, picked everything from the trash and arranged them on the floor. Here are a few pictures of what I found. Makes you wonder.

What used to be all thrown in the trash is now going to compost, recycling or trash thanks to the a nice setup.

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