New Rochelle’s Trinity Elementary school was featured in the local news for their effort to recycle. This school has implemented the We Future Cycle source separation program 3 years ago and is now soon changing over to also including composting into the system. Watch the video here.
Meet Ms Weintraub’s class from the Daniel Webster Elementary School in New Rochelle. In honor of Earthday they cleaned up around the school, and they did it with gusto. Prickle bushes were no deterrent for these motivated Earth Rangers. They have been learning in school about the environment and they are determined to do their part.
Way to go!
The Food waste in the US is staggering, actually beyond imagination.
Check out this super interesting blog.
http://www.sustainableamerica.org/blog/we-survived-for-6-months-on-discarded-food/
On March 31, 2014, I was so proud to present the School Lunch Recycling Program to the Westchester County Board of Legislators, Committee for Energy and Environment.
Legislator Catherine Parker invited Anne Jeffe Holmes, Director of Programming at the Greenburgh Nature Center, Jean Bonhatal from the Cornell Waste Management Institute and myself, Anna Giordano, to share programs in place in Westchester working towards the final frontier of Food Waste Management.
Here is the video coverage of the event.
The Legislators were very interested and assured us that they will carefully look at how they can create infrastructure in Westchester to facilitate local Food waste management.
Right now, only Suburban Carting offers commercial food waste hauling to an out-of-county facility.
But food waste is black gold and we really need to keep it in Westchester to benefit from it.
This Youtube is a must watch to understand the relationship between food, composting, recycling, agriculture and our general attitude towards food and life.
Enjoy
New Rochelle’s Trinity Elementary school is the first school in the District to sort out all compostable and recyclable items from the lunchroom. The results were simply amazing. Dr Korostoff, New Rochelle’s superintendent, is personally overlooking and supporting its implementation.
New Rochelle’s food service provider Whitson has been very helpful in eliminating items from the lunchroom that were problematic to sort.
The We Future Cycle school lunch recycling program is very simple, the children empty their left over drinks into a bucket, then sort the drink container, they empty their left over food into the compost and they stack their trays. Any untouched food items go into the share basket, any extra plastic goes with the plastics. Done!
The only thing left in the regular trash are very soiled plastic bags, ripped chip bags or yogurt pouches. That is IT! Continue reading New Rochelle Elementary School Sorts Out Compost, Recycling, Garbage reduced from 22 bags down to less then 1/4 bag
These are my comments shared with the New Rochelle Board of Education on March 25th, 2014.
Dear Board,
I have been coming to speak here now for about 3 years, the first time in June of 2011. I shared with you then, that I realized how much garbage the kids were generating in the lunchrooms. How mindless they were throwing everything out, how there was no recycling can in sight anywhere, how the students were trained that everything around them was disposable and all they had to do is throw it mindlessly in the garbage.
Continue reading New Rochelle School District Garbage Reduced 23% Since Recycling Was Introduced
Single Use Plastic bags cost the tax payers enormous money because they clog up sewers and litter the environment. New York City has been the front runner for many ground breaking changes in how residents handle disposables.Single Use Plastic bags are a major problem for our environment. These bags never decompose, all they do is “photodegrate”, which means they eventually fall apart into tiny little pieces of plastic which are impossible to eliminate. These tiny pieces of plastic create a plastic soup, which has made it into our food chain.New York City is proposing legislation to put a 10 cents charge on each Single Use Plastic bag to foster change in consumer behavior. Because to be frank, people tend to change only if it hits their pocket book.Intro 209-2104 was introduced by the NY City Council today:http://nypost.com/2014/03/24/proposal-would-levy-10-cent-fee-on-paper-plastic-shopping-bags/
This is the petition sent to the Mayor of NYC to support this legislation.Dear Mayor De Blasio:I’m writing today to urge you to support Intro 209-2014, which will reduce the use of plastic bags in New York City.Plastic bags take years to decompose even when disposed of properly. They also harm our creeks, bays and rivers and the animals that live in them, and cause massive amounts of litter on our streets.Plastic bags are also expensive to taxpayers. It costs New York City $10 million to transport 100,000 bags to landfills each year. This bill would reduce that cost while also protecting our environment.Cities and communities across the country have implemented similar initiatives with great success. New York should be at the forefront of this movement, and as a member of the New York League of Conservation Voters, I believe that our city should implement a plastic bag fee to deter the use of single-use bags.Please support a greener, cleaner New York City. Please support Intro 209-2014.Trust me, this is not only a NYC problem, this is a New Rochelle problem just as much. Please support the NYC bill by joining the petition, once NYC passes legislation like that, it is much easier to bring similar legislation to New Rochelle and Westchester.Bringing your re-usable bags to the store is not difficult at all, Try it, you might like it.
Sharing our School Lunch Recycling Flyer with your school district’s superintendent, principal, and/or director of facilities can help start a conversation about the benefits of recycling and composting at your school. Feel free to contact us with any questions!
Every lunchroom in the school district has left over food, but so far, this food has gone into the garbage. Always the same concerns against donating it to local soup kitchens were raised. Who would pick up? We are not allowed to donate tax payers money. What if someone gets sick, then we would get sued.
Melissa Passarelli, Principal of Webster Elementary School, shared with me that she found it particularly upsetting that left over milk on Friday, with a short date of Sunday, could not be donated on Friday to either afternoon program children or other agencies. Instead, that milk is being stored over the weekend, just to be thrown out on Monday.
I learned recently about a wonderful organization called
“RockandWrapitup.org”
This organization has recovered thousands of pounds of cooked, but unserved food, or short dated foods such as milk or bread before a school break to give to local agencies. They have an extensive network of vetted and accredited agencies that serve the needy.
In 2008 Public Law 110-247 was enacted to encourage food donation to non profit organizations that provide assistance to food insecure people in the US.
All Donors are protected from liability through the 1996 Bill Emmerson Good Samaritan Law 104-210, 110 Stat.3011)
I have shared this program with New Rochelle’s Superintendent Jeffrey Korostoff, who was immediately on board to see what needs to be done for our schools to connect into the system. Way to go!
We Future Cycle 