About Our Project
The RI School Recycling Project was created in 2001, in partnership with the RI Resource Recovery Corporation and the RI Department of Environmental Management to improve recycling in RI schools. At that time, the number of schools recycling properly was 18% – among the lowest in New England. When our program ended on 2007, the recycling rate in schools had increased to 68%!
Results like that prove that change is possible. So, we’re focusing on food waste in RI schools – and how to reduce, recover and recycle it.
The Math is Difficult to Understand
With a grant from the RI Attorney General’s Office in 2019, RISRP conducted 15 food waste audits in three public school districts, including elementary, middle and high schools, in urban, suburban and rural settings. We wanted to know how much – and what kind of – food was being wasted.
The numbers are hard to swallow. We estimate that RI public schools waste approximately 13.8 tons of food each week, which translates to 2,500 tons for the school year, with 388 tons of that food unopened or untouched: fruit, granola bars, yogurt, cheese sticks and milk! With our Central Landfill in Johnston almost full and hunger in our state at dire levels, we knew where to focus our efforts.
Our Wish to End Waste Is Being Granted
We started with a Healthy Communities Grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency that was sponsored by the RI Department of Environmental Management. In the fall of 2021 with facemasks on we launched at Birchwood and Nathan Bishop Middle Schools as well as LaPerche & Rhodes Elementary Schools. That led to a second EPA Healthy Communities Grant, two USDA Grants and more recently, generous funding from 11th Hour Racing’ Grant Program.
We are now in 35 schools and expect to reach half of all schools in Rhode Island by 2027 and all schools by 2030. Together we will help achieve the goal the U.S. and United Nations set in 2015 to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030. We will do this by measuring the food waste we prevent, recover and divert from the central landfill and interpreting that data on our Food Waste Dashboard. Check it out!
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