Creating Landfill Independence

This past spring, with stunning results, Cafu piloted our Cafeteria Waste Reduction Project at the Neighborhood School and PS 63 in the East Village. Within several weeks only, we empowered students to be the Stewards of their cafeteria and facilitated an arts-based messaging workshop, resulting in a reduction of cafeteria garbage from 9 bags per day to a mere ¾ ‘s of a bag per day.  ALL food waste was composted locally, completely  eliminating the need for polluting trucks to haul food waste and reducing NYC’s out-of-state landfill bound garbage, waste hauling costs, and green house gas emissions! Thank you to all the students and staff at both schools for supporting this effort and to East 12th Street's Children's Garden for helping us to make local food composting a reality!

NYC Department of Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty recently announced plans to expand a Compost Pilot Program to 20 public schools in the fall! This great news came at a ceremony honoring D3 Green Schools and District 3 School Food and Custodial staff, who participated in a D3 Composting Pilot, a result of a private-public partnership that was initiated by Cafeteria Culture (CafCu)/SOS!

In September 2011, CafCu suggested a public school cafeteria-composting pilot to IESI and introduced the private carting company to public school parents through our EPA hosted info-sharing meetings. A successful pilot was born! The D3 Composting Pilot resulted in the diversion of 450 pounds of food waste per day from our landfills, reducing cafeteria garbage by 85%! Manhattan schools PS 89 -The Liberty School and PS 40 also participated in IESI tray composting pilots, dramatically reducing their school cafeteria landfill bound garbage. 

THANK YOU parents from D3 Green Schools, PS89, and PS 40; students and school staff from all participating schools; IESI; EPA Region 2; Global Green; and NYC Department of Education Offices of SchoolFood, Sustainability, and Facilities. 

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO MAKE CHANGE!