In an effort to be more environmentally friendly, the Parkway School District has made several changes which have affected the way students go about their day. Some ways are cutting down on light usage and eco-friendly lunchroom trays.
Some Parkway schools were found to have three to four times more than the recommended level of light in classrooms, according to Erik Lueders, the district’s Sustainability and Purchasing Manager. That caused members of the district to cut down electricity usage in classrooms, which in turn saves money for the district.
North region schools were found to be more environmentally friendly and recently switched to recycled, compostable lunch trays provided from a grant by the St. Louis Jefferson Solid Waste Management District. These trays are made of post-consumer material and plants, and are composted after use to be made into soil again. The program began in most North area schools on the 24th of September.
Of all the students participating in this program, the youngest students had the best understanding of what the program does. At McKelvey Elementary, some of the Mosaics students-previously called gifted students-taught others how to properly use the new composting bins. Any food scraps, as well as the trays, go in the yellow composting bins provided by Blue Skies Recycling. All milk or juice cartons and any other recyclables the students may have are deposited in the recycling bin, and the rest of the trash goes in the trash bin. At the end of each designated time, Blue Skies picks up the waste and brings new yellow bins and recycling containers for the students to use.
“It’s helping the school with not putting so much trash into landfills,”  fourth grader Emily Moser said.
One of her classmates was able to explain that without composting, unfinished food ends up in landfills. These students would like to see other compostable dishware, like salad trays, in their lunchroom.
At North High, opinions of the trays are different all across the board. Many students don’t care about the new program. Some haven’t even noticed. However, there are those who find this program important.
”Making students more [aware] will help them to make better choices in the future,” sophomore Abby Lammers said. This program results in less trash going to landfills and more being composted.
Northeast Middle composts on campus as one way to reduce their carbon footprint. There are three composting bins on campus where teachers send their food scraps, as well as the FACS class food waste. The soil produced from the compost is used in their on-campus garden.
“Using the new trays helps to ‘close the loop’ in that we’re buying recycled content products while also recycling them on the back end,” Lueders said. He expects that trash services will be reduced by half in the elementary schools and by one-third in the high school due to the amount of compost produced. Originally each elementary school was supposed to receive two compost bins, the middle school four, and the high school six, but all of those numbers were underestimated. From all of the bins collected from all of the schools, 24,161 pounds of material is diverted from landfills each month, Blue Skies Representative Karen Dubinsky said.
If enough students are in support of this and the school can afford to, this program could expand to the rest of the Parkway district. However, there are no guarantees.