Composting: Elementary, My Dear

Parents of 6 Hilliard elementary schools (Alton Darby, Horizon, Britton, Norwich, Scioto Darby, and Hoffman Trails) are probably familiar with a new activity occurring at these schools–composting!  Yep, Hilliard kids are learning how effective, yet easy, it is to become more environmentally conscientious!

For instance, at Britton Elementary, in addition to composting, they have also eliminated all drinking straws, which are the second most littered item across the US.  What’s the most littered item, you may ask? Cigarette butts.

Anyhow, Britton has also eliminated polystyrene cafeteria trays.  No more Styrofoam Monsters for them!  And they’ve initiated a “salad bar” which allows the serving of fruits and vegetables without being encased in either plastic wrap or a plastic cup!  How incredible is all this!

For composting, each week, a specific classroom acts as the monitors to make sure that the disposal is being done properly.  They dump liquids into a separate bucket so it doesn’t add a lot of weight to the compost receptacle.  Left over food is scrapped into the receptacle, and the compostable trays are first stacked neatly so they can be placed into the receptacle in a more orderly fashion, reducing a lot of wasted space.  Packaging that can be recycled is collected in a separate receptacle.

Overall, for the year, these schools have reduced their trash pulls by one per week.  The estimate is that approximately 12 tons have been diverted…….And this is just 6 elementary schools!

Hopefully, this trend will continue next school year with more and more schools getting on board with this program.  We’ll post as we learn more.