Tag Archives: waste

Yonkers considering Styrofoam ban and School Lunch Recycling Program

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Last night We Future Cycle had the opportunity to present the school lunch recycling program to the City Council of Yonkers.

 http://view.earthchannel.com/PlayerController.aspx?&PGD=ynkny&eID=206

Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in New York State with 24,000 students in 39 schools. All schools are using exclusively EPS (Styrofoam) disposable trays.  Which means every school is producing depending on size between 15 – 30 bags of garbage per lunch.

Every. School.  Every. Single. Day.

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Councilman Michael Sabatino is trying to change that. He has proposed to eliminate all single use food Styrofoam items over the next two years.  A wonderful proposal.

The School Lunch Recycling Program offered by We Future Cycle changes the way schools organize lunch. Instead of teaching the kids to “just throw it out”, students are taught to empty extra liquids into a bucket and sort their drink container, then students empty their left over food into the compost bucket and stack their tray. Simple. Continue reading Yonkers considering Styrofoam ban and School Lunch Recycling Program →

New Rochelle Webster Elementary School is Going Waste Free in all K-3 Classrooms

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At around 10:30 am, most younger grades have snack time in class. Out come the plastic baggies that hold the prepackaged chips, or cookies as well as the juice box. A survey showed that one classroom with 18 students generated 15 juice boxes or juice pouches per snack,  as well as between 20 – 30 different single use packaging items. A total weight of 4 lbs per class. 4 lbs may not sound like much, but this pictures shows the amount of garbage coming out of 3 kindergarten classes. Every day.

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So, Anna Giordano set out to create the Waste Free Snack program and together with Lovetta James rolled it out in January of 2014.

The program consists of one week of targeted education to the children.  As parents are the ones packing the snack, they also have to be a part of the solution and a letter was sent home to parents asking for their help to get this trashy problem under control.

The principal Melissa Passarelli walked to all the classes and talked to the students about eating more healthy and she asked them what they thought was healthier….chips or a banana. The result was astounding, the very next day, we had 60% of the class bringing in bananas for snack.

We weighed snack waste every day, teachers tallied the daily amounts and incorporated the lessons into Math, English, Social Studies and Science. Remarkably, within a day we already saw drastic reductions of close to 50% in single use packaging and it went steadily down from there on.

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After 10 days of daily weigh ins and education the program culminated in the award ceremony, where each child “won” a reusable water bottle and a reusable snack bag imprinted with the schools name. The students were very proud.

The students also pledged to go Waste Free and wrote their name on a leaf to paste it onto the beautiful tree, created by the amazing art teacher.

From that day on, we had a close to 100% return rate of the reusable lunch bag and we started sending any uneaten food, and any packaging back home with the students. Now,  all the lower grades are completely waste free at snack time, and that knowledge has spilled over into the lunchroom as well.

“The first day we sent the uneaten food back home, we were holding our head down, awaiting the storm of phone calls from parents, but amazingly, there was not a single one”,  remembers Greg Middleton, Assistant Principal.

The students at Daniel Webster Elementary School have learned a valuable life lesson. Waste-free starts with me!

 

Westchester County Board of Legislator Endorses School Lunch Recycling Program

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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.

New Rochelle Elementary School Sorts Out Compost, Recycling, Garbage reduced from 22 bags down to less then 1/4 bag

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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!

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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 →

New Rochelle’s Schools to Donate Surplus Food instead of Throwing it in the Garbage

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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!

Westchester Municipal Officials Association endorses School Lunch Recycling Program

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I would like to thank the Westchester Municipal Officials Association for hosting this meeting.

Thanks to the introduction of the Town Clerk of the Town of Greenburgh, I was invited to present the School Lunch Recycling Program today to many leaders of Westchester’s municipalities.

In attendance were municipal officials of White Plains, Yonkers, Bronxville, Peekskill, Tarrytown, Ossining, Mamaroneck, Rye Brook, Town of Greenburgh and others.

I presented the cost savings, educational and environmental benefits that this program brings to schools and how these benefits will be carried back into the homes and thus back into the municipalities. All members in attendance were very interested and supportive and voted unanimously to endorse the School Lunch Recycling Program.

I am very grateful for that support. I am looking forward to working with these municipalities and school districts to make source separation, school food composting and recycling the norm in Westchester’s schools. For our children and for our future.

New Rochelle School District approves Invoice for 60 (!) hrs of labor to paint a Flag Pole

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Dear Board,

I wanted to express my utter disgust at the lack of financial responsibility displayed by the Head of Buildings and Grounds in the Trinity Flag Pole Painting job from November of 2012 as detailed in the New Rochelle talk.

I hope you had all the opportunity to read that expose.

http://www.newrochelletalk.com

Who can possibly approve 60 man hours of labor to paint a flag pole?

It supposedly took 30 hrs to scrape the pole, another 8 hrs to prime it, and another 16 hrs to finish coat it. And what I love most, it took 6 hrs to clean up afterwards.

And the best, they managed to do all that with only a one day rental for the boom truck. So clearly, during the Trinity Flag Pole Painting Project, the work day was 30 hrs long!

And what is the sense of a purchase order if the invoice is by far exceeding it; and that without any explanation or questions asked?

We are increasing class sizes and are loosing special programs, just so we can pay $4500 to repaint a flag pole? This is absolutely crazy. Continue reading New Rochelle School District approves Invoice for 60 (!) hrs of labor to paint a Flag Pole →