Schools
are talking trash to help put a lid on
waste
Efforts raise awareness of need
to curb garbage
Friday, May 13, 2005 • BY BEN FELLER •
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAUREL, Md. -- As students walk by with
their lasagna, snacks and fruit, Sally Oswald sees a
cafeteria routine that most parents do not. This is no lunch
line. It's a trash line.
Students at Hammond Elementary toss away
half-eaten apples, untouched sandwiches and portions of
pizza slices. That's on top of the packaging, from shiny
juice pouches to plastic bags.
Even on Wednesdays, when the school
encourages "waste-free" meals, lunchtime yields about 100
pounds of trash. Students weigh the trash to check each
grade's progress in reducing waste, but the numbers go up
and down like signs of a struggling diet.
"When you think that this happens in
every elementary school every day, it starts to speak to
you," Oswald said, looking at the weekly trash tallies.
"This is a real problem."
In scattered communities across the
country, schools are working to keep their cafeterias from
becoming trash heaps. Whether driven to help the
environment, save money or stop a careless tossing of food,
some educators say they are hungry to make lunch more
efficient.
The mission isn't easy. Many parents
favor throwaway packaging that's quick and easy, right down
to pre-wrapped peanut-butter sandwiches. Students have their
own reasons for leaving things behind -- some feel too
rushed to finish meals during brief lunch periods, some
don't like the food, some don't think to reuse those
sealable bags.
It adds up. A single student produces 45
to 90 pounds of garbage a year in disposable lunches,
according to New York's Department of Environmental
Conservation. A federal review of the National School Lunch
Program found that wasted food costs more than $600 million,
plus an untold nutritional loss.
At Oak Hills Elementary in Ventura
County, Calif., students filled eight barrels a day with
lunch waste just a few years ago. Principal Anthony Knight
was appalled to find most of it was water bottles, plastic
bags and paper products that could be recycled.
So he enforced zero-waste tolerance.
Students, under the watchful eye of peer monitors, divided
their trash into waste and recycling bins. Parents were
strongly encouraged to eschew conveniently packaged foods in
favor of reusable containers. Before long, the waste was
down to about one barrel a day.
"There was resistance at first," said
Knight, now superintendent of the Oak Park Unified School
District. "Some people accused us of sticking our nose out
of the educational realm and into their personal business.
But most parents thought it was great because they were
being taught by their children how to recycle. It became
embedded in the school's culture."
Yet many food service workers from rural
to urban areas say their schools do nothing to limit food
waste, according to an informal survey by the American
Federation of Teachers.
"You offer the kids choices, but you
can't force a child to eat," said Alma Hackler, a lunchroom
worker at Fontainebleau High School in Mandeville, La. "All
you can control is to try to provide them with a nutritional
meal."
Parents do have control, however, over
how they pack lunches, said Amy Hemmert of Santa Cruz,
Calif., who tracks waste-free programs nationwide and runs a
Web site that offers tips and sells lunch kits of colorful,
reusable containers.
"A lot of parents write me out of
frustration," Hemmert said. "They say their kids sit down
for two minutes, take a scoop of yogurt, take a sip out of
the juice box, take a bite out of their cereal bar, and then
it all goes in the trash. We need to think
differently."
That's what they're doing at Hammond
Elementary in Laurel, Md., outside Washington.
Some of Oswald's environmentally
conscious fifth-graders have taken ownership of waste-free
Wednesday. They skip their recess to monitor other lunch
periods, taking turns on a microphone to remind other
students about the value of recycling.
"We're trying to set an example,"
explained 11-year-old Derek Chan.
There are signs it is working. On one
recent day, fourth-grader Julie Kaplan showed off a lunch
packed in reusable containers and announced plans to take
home the leftovers. The 9-year-old had not one piece of
trash. "We're saving nature," she said.
The school has had to tweak its
experiment. Students in the grade with the least trash were
praised as "losers" -- as in trash losers -- but that didn't
go over well. Now they're called winners. Next year,
students hope they will be offered prizes, such as extra
recess.
Meanwhile, the waste-free days have had
only minimal impact. Change will take time, said Oswald, who
oversees the program. Parents have to think differently
about food shopping, even if their kids have to nudge
them.
"This is the age when you can have a huge
opportunity to make an impression," she said. It's powerful
for young kids to get the message. We've just become a
generation of waste."
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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