During the fall of 2021, two schools in Rhode Island learned about the problems associated with food waste.
In October, the students at Raymond LaPerche Elementary School in Smithfield and Birchwood Middle School in North Providence were given presentations by RI Resource Recovery on Food Waste Prevention – What is Food Waste? Why Do We Care About It? What Can We Do About It? Then, at LaPerche, the 2nd and 4th graders learned how to become Cafeteria Rangers. And at Birchwood, the S.T.E.A.M. classes put together Green Teams.
In the winter, two additional schools joined Get Food Smart, RI, The Edward S. Rhodes Elementary School in Cranston and Nathan Bishop Middle School in Providence. After learning about the problems of food waste from RI Resource Recovery, at Rhodes the 4th graders learned how to become Cafeteria Rangers and it was the 6th, 7th and 8th graders at Nathan Bishop who became the Green Team Captains.
Each school conducted food waste audits using five-bin cafeteria sorting stations, learned safe food handling guidelines from the RI Department of Health and showed other students how to separate food scraps for composting and surplus food for sharing with students and donating to local food pantries.
The 5 Bin Cafeteria Sorting Station:
Share Table – First, students placed unopened milk, yogurt and uneaten bananas, oranges, and apples in the cooler on the Share Table.
Liquid Bucket – Next, they poured off any unfinished milk and juice…
Recycling Bin – and placed their cartons, juice boxes, aluminum cans along with other plastic containers in the Recycle Bin.
Landfill Bin – Then they threw their straws, plastic bags, and wrappers in the Landfill bin and…
Compost Bin – Finally all uneaten food got put in the compost bin.
Tray Table – Trays are stacked neatly so they take up less space in the Landfill bin (Styrofoam, yuk!) Compost bin (paper trays, better!) or reusable trays headed for the dishwasher (best practice!)
13.6 TONS OF FOOD WASTE DIVERTED!
By the end of the 21/22 school year, all four schools had diverted 13.6 tons of food waste, mostly for composting and donated just over one ton of extra food to food insecure families in their communities. Lunchroom custodians have reported that the amount of trash going to the landfill has been reduced by as much as 80%! Wow! That’s good for the environment because it reduces methane, the greenhouse gas caused by food waste in the landfill and because the compost it creates improves the soil.
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