Composting
Fifteen Things That You Can Do To Green Your School Campus
Every one of us has the ability to make a difference on our child's school campus by making a few easy changes to school policies and practices. This is a wonderful opportunity to have a positive impact on your environment, your community, your school and your child. Here are fifteen things that you can do to make changes at your own child's school this year.
Start by creating a policy that at all school events, plates, cups and glasses must be either reusable or compostable. Be clear that disposable plastic and Styrofoam are no longer allowed to be used anywhere on campus. Provide information about where to buy compostables so that people are able to easily make this change. Here are a few options that I would recommend: Fabri-Kal Greenware Arrow Tableware Nature Friendly Products World Centric Biocompostables Green Logic At lunch and at larger gatherings, be sure that condiments and things like butter and cream cheese are purchased in bulk rather than individual servings. I just participated in a large waste audit where we had to pick through literally hundreds of tiny foil butter wrappers that were scattered throughout the food scraps and compostable tableware, all items that were on their way to giant windrows to be composted. If those wrappers had not been removed, they would have ruined the entire batch of compostable material. Imagine how much more difficult this would have been if there had been ketchup and mustard packets too! Have well labeled recycling/Composting bins throughout the campus with clear signage indicating what goes where in order to help both direct waste flow and to educate the children about what can and cannot be recycled/composted. Conduct waste audits with each grade so that the children can see what happens when a whole school throws things away for a whole day. Weigh each type of waste to see how much of each there is and brainstorm about ways to reduce campus waste. This process will be very educational for the children and they may have some good ideas about the ways that they can help to be a part of the solution. Encourage the copy room staff to print double sided copies whenever possible and request that they use 100% post-consumer recycled paper that is processed chlorine free. Consider instituting a "Pack in Pack out" policy where anything brought from home for snacks and lunches either gets eaten or returned home. This allows parents to see what their children are and aren't eating and also significantly decreases the amount of trash and recycling that the school must pay to have hauled each year. Ask your school board to stop using water bottles if they are using them. In order to set an example, have them bring their own reusable cups and a pitcher of filtered water. Leadership starts at the top and if our school's leaders are setting a good example, parents, staff and faculty will note it. This will trickle down to the students as well. Host a Zero Waste Sustainability Event to create awareness and educate parents and teachers. Incorporate a chance to network, offer incentives such as prizes for those who choose carpooling in order to limit the amount of driven trips to school. Make sure green cleaning products and practices are used everyday to ensure a healthy and hospitable environment for your child. Create a purchasing policy that states that all cleaning products purchased by the school must be green and non-toxic in order to protect your child from hazardous toxic chemicals. Make sure energy saving features are enabled on all computers in the school, so that they go into sleep or hibernation when no one is using them instead of displaying a screensaver. This simple setting change makes the computer use much less electricity, saving money and greenhouse gas emissions By Merryl Brown - Merryl Brown Events is a Santa Barbara based wedding and event planning company specializing in elegant, classic events created within a framework of environmental and social responsibility.http://www.m...
|
|
|
|
How to make compost
2 Oct 2007 at 7:45pm
Composting at Home: Two Easy Methods
22 Nov 2008 at 2:11pm
How to Compost at Home with a Composting Bin
16 Feb 2009 at 9:19am
Composting
14 Dec 2006 at 1:17pm
|
Next page: Composting Toilet Comparison
Bookmark/Share This Page:
|
|
|
Composting News
County: Lamont utility has sewer water options in composter case - Bakersfiel...
4 Feb 2012 at 10:09pm County officials engaged in a court fight with a Lamont composting facility say they have identified several alternatives for disposing of more than 1 million gallons a day of sewer water, a contention that strikes at the heart of claims that ...Read more...
White Wave Looks to the Farm to Improve Environmental Footprint - GreenBiz
3 Feb 2012 at 7:01am Dairy cows are a big source of methane emissions, and when it comes to cutting methane, managing and composting manure effectively is key. "The composting practices that we put in place at the farm are to make sure we get the most benefits for ...Read more...
New Compost Labels Help Home Gardeners - Earth 911
2 Feb 2012 at 5:54pm The U.S. Composting Council is taking the guess-work out of choosing the right kind of compost by launching its Consumer Compost Use Program ? a labeling system that will identify the types of uses that a compost product is best suited for ...Read more...
Proposed rules governing composting inching ahead - Bennington Banner
1 Feb 2012 at 9:37pm SHAFTSBURY -- Proposed rules governing commercial composting inch forward at both the local and state level. Involved in both processes in Shaftsbury and Montpelier are local residents concerned about such facilities' potential impacts in the ...Read more...
Forks gets even greener with composting - Winnipeg Free Press
1 Feb 2012 at 3:15am Fresh from installing a geothermal heating and cooling system that has slashed its reliance on natural gas, The Forks Renewal Corp.'s latest green initiative is composting. And it's doing it on a fairly large scale. Winnipeggers who have been skating ...Read more...
Composting made me green (around the gills) - Independent Online
1 Feb 2012 at 1:34am Of all the repulsive things in the world, is there anything more revolting than a maggot? I drew up a list the other day of all the things that make me squirm ? Top Billing; Vienna milkshakes; the entrails of moles; tramp poo; tripe; chakra alignment ...Read more...
Is there a curbside composting boom in U.S. cities? - SmartPlanet.com
31 Jan 2012 at 10:47am Over the past three years, the number of cities that offer curbside recycling has grown to 90. Growth? Definitely. A composting boom? Not quite. Nationwide, our recycling rate is only 33.8 percent and only 3 percent of that is from organic waste.Read more...
