In our daily lives, we too easily fall into wasteful habits. Yet waste—bad habits, landfill-bound garbage, or inefficient technologies—can inspire the development of our ecological citizenship.
At Park Forest Elementary, we began a concerted effort in 2013 to decrease our carbon footprint. The journey started with a question: "How can we reach zero waste in our school?" We defined "zero waste" as recycling, reusing, reducing, repurposing, or TerraCycling items so that every piece of waste went somewhere other than a landfill.
Our first step was to reach out to community resources. We sought guidance from our district's directors of Food Service and the Physical Plant, student representatives from Penn State who were experienced in sustainable practices and waste reduction, and the education coordinator from the local recycling company. After we set the goal to reduce our school's trash pickups, we gathered data through a waste audit and a "fresh eyes" tour of the school to see where and how waste was emphasized and deemphasized.
A Zero Waste Team—comprising students, teachers, parents, custodial staff, and the district's director of the Physical Plant—led our efforts. Although we have not yet hit our zero waste target, we have helped the entire school community think differently about waste and its collection.
Small Changes Add Up
Our work has unfolded in a number of ways. We have encouraged everyone in the school to use only one paper towel when drying their hands, an idea spurred by a TED Talk on "how to use a paper towel." We discovered that most people used two or three pieces of paper to dry their hands. Students gathered data by weighing the restrooms' paper towels each week. Supported by that data and student presentations, we reduced our paper towel usage by 26 cases per year.
At the same time, we changed the sizes and locations of waste receptacles throughout the school. The new landfill receptacles (renamed to identify where their contents go) are small. The recycling receptacles, previously small and often hidden in classrooms, are now large and easily visible. Students crafted "Are You Sure?" posters and banners that we placed all over the school to remind us where our waste goes and prompt us to recycle.
We have also furthered our work by engaging in various programs, including the Recycle-Bowl and our county's plastics recycling contest. We have been recognized annually as WasteWatchers by the Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania, and our extensive TerraCycling program collects juice pouches, plastic cups, pens, pencils, markers, Scotch tape, and other difficult-to-recycle items. Using the funds earned through the program, we installed our first water bottle filling station, which prevented the use of 855 plastic bottles within the first two weeks. We are saving to install two more.
Our zero waste numbers are encouraging. In 2013, we recycled 690 pounds of plastic, 474 pounds of metal cans, and 10,675 pounds of mixed paper—nearly 6 tons of waste diverted from the landfill. Beyond recycling, we also compost organic matter. This year, we successfully composted meats, cheeses, bones, oil, and paper towels through a community compost initiative.
In the lunchroom, we instituted an assembly-line system where students can place compost, silverware, liquids, juice pouches, miscellaneous plastics, and landfill-bound waste in specific bins. This has reduced the dumpster hauls from five times a week to twice a week and our waste disposal bill from $534 to $261 per month. Lunchroom waste is now reduced to wax-coated milk cartons and plastic straws.