Going Green has slowly become more noticeable in school districts across the nation, and Parkway School District has continued to play their part.
“Parkway has a recycling program that is two decades old. The goal of this program is to divert an additional 720 tons of material from the landfill,” Parkway Sustainability and Purchasing Manager Erik Lueders said. “This will be accomplished by using 100% recycled content lunch trays instead of Styrofoam and using a composting service that takes all food scrap and trays to a compost facility that blends that material into mulched yard waste. In addition, we hope to reduce the frequency of our landfill dumpster pickups by 30-50%.”
This change breaks a long-lasting tradition of Styrofoam lunch treys, but the possibly payoff is clearly seen.
“After being used, these new compostable trays will be placed in new yellow compost bins. The yellow bins will be replaced daily with clean, sanitized bins. The full bins are then swapped by a company, Blue Skies Recycling, which will take the food scrap and trays to the same location that all yard waste is disposed of. The food scrap is used to create nutrient rich compost that is then available for purchase at garden stores,” Lueders said.
While the change may seem somewhat monumental, it has been tested already at a nearby Parkway School.
“At North High we worked with student environmental clubs and science classes to take the lead in spreading awareness. These students created a lot of visual media to clearly explain what goes where and spent time during the lunches helping out classmates get a better understanding,” Lueders said.
With the experimental procedure at North High, Parkway has already witnessed some of the effective and non-effective techniques of teaching this new “green” program.
“Students teaching students is the most effective method we’ve seen. Teachers can talk all day, but till students take ownership of this program, there will be some struggle. Students at North High understood this and even went as far as to teach to the middle school,” Lueders said.
The program is being taken District-wide this year, and many, such as Lueders, are more than excited about the potential impact. But with any new program come several new challenges and problems.
“Some of the initial challenges we had was creating enough awareness about the program so that students and staff know exactly where their various waste goes,” Lueders said. “Common mistakes that we encountered were students putting items that are not compostable in the compost bin.”
Lueders and others in the program are going to be able to monitor the success of the program, though, through several different kinds of reports and sights.
“One method of evaluating our program is by getting weight reports from our composting hauler. We also visually inspect the bins to make sure they are free of contamination,” Lueders said.
With this new program, Parkway will look to their students to step up and make a difference, for the help of their school, their district, and themselves.
“One small change in the district, and all the sudden we’re effectively doubling how much material we take out of the landfill,” Lueders said. “People should remember that small actions can lead to big things. What change have you made lately?”