Drum roll please. The first SORT2save how-to video is here! Create a culture of zero waste in your cafeteria while making change fun - for everyone!

The SORT2save cheer! is a fun and easy way to teach students and staff how to correctly sort food scraps and packaging for a zero waste, healthy future.  Teachers, share with your students. Students, share with your teachers. Share it with everyone!

NEXT UP in the SORT2save (S2s) series:
CAFETERIA RANGERS - YOUR SCHOOL CAN DO IT!

SIGN UP HERE to receive a downloadable PDF of the SORT2save cheer!  lyrics and be the first to know when the next video in the S2s series is posted. 

At school? Watch the SORT2save cheer!  video on Vimeo here ->.
Watch the SORT2save cheer! video on YouTube here ->.

Are you aware that everything you "throw away" will be negatively impacting some community along the journey to a waste transfer station, landfill or incinerator?
Most NYC residents never think about this, unless, of course, garbage is being dumped in one's own "backyard."  So why should you care? 
Watch this short video, created by 8th graders in our program, and find out!

There is not a single NYC community that wants hundreds of garbage filled, carbon spewing trucks driving through it's streets.  NYC is close to spending $1 BILLION on improving NYC garbage transfer yet, we spend only a tiny fraction of that amount on  innovating REDUCE EDUCATION! (more ->)

Now is  the perfect time for creating innovative strategies to engage NYC youth on the "why" and "how" of sorting recyclables and compostables - and the public school cafeteria is an ideal place to start! With NYC's recent expansion of recycling and composting, students and staff urgently need fresh and engaging tools to reduce school trash. Why not make change fun?

Watch our new music video, "Sortin' It Out"  (a work in progress), co-created with the fabulous students and staff from MS 246 Walt Whitman in Brooklyn. 

We need your help to complete "Sortin' It Out" and more edu-taining videos, all to be included in our multi-media Toolkit for School Cafeteria Waste Reduction.

Please make your tax-deductible DONATION now.  Together, we can inspire school communities to reduce, recycle, and compost for a zero-waste, healthy future.

CafCu gratefully acknowledges the generous support from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2 for funding our ARTS+ACTION program at MS 246 Walt Whitman. Learn more about our innovative, interdisciplinary school programshere.
See the US EPA's Student's Guide to Global Climate Change here.

"I never thought that learning about garbage would be so interesting!"

When one of our eighth grade students at MS 246 turned to me with a huge smile and said this, I knew our Video Journalism curriculum was right on target.  We are not only training students to be leaders in the cafeteria, we are teaching media production to teens so they can tell their own powerful stories about NYC’s garbage plight!  

Right now, we urgently need your support to help students complete their timely videos and share them with thousands of youth across NYC. These student movies are shedding light on how the seemingly meaningless act of throwing something away is negatively impacting low income communities in NYC and beyond.

We are dedicated to piloting new curriculum that will inspire youth to take charge of their future and to take action to reduce Green House Gas emissions. Your generous gift will help us to bring more ARTS+ACTION environmental education to underserved NYC schools.

Thank you for helping us to achieve zero waste cafeterias and climate-smart public school communities.
 
Cafeteria Culture sincerely thanks:

• The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for generously funding our ARTS+ACTION Cafeteria Waste Reduction Program at MS 246!
• The entire MS 246 community  for partnering with us.
• Just Add Water for camera donations! 
• All of our generous donors who support our work in NYC schools!

Header Photos:  Cafeteria Culture's Video Journalism workshop - students from Mr. Thornhill's ELA class at MS 246 Walt Whitman Middle School, Brooklyn, NY; Top Left and Right - students interviewing Flatbush residents about air quality and litter; Bottom Right - Atsuko Quirk, Cafeteria Culture Media Director, teaching camera technique to class 804.

This Thursday, New York City Council will vote on the bill to ban toxic and polluting polystyrene foam (commonly known as Styrofoam™) to-go containers.
 
Please email or call your New York City Council Member today (find them here). Urge her/him to VOTE YES on Int #1060. There are currently 21 co-signers on this bill and 26 votes are needed for this bill to pass. We are so close to getting styrene foam out of our city. NYC Council Members need to hear from you! (learn more).

Here is a sample message:
Dear Council Member,
I urge you to vote yes for Int #1060 to ban foam to-go containers and to protect the health of all NYC communities and our environment. 

Polystyrene is toxic and polluting from the start of manufacturing and then, forever.  It is an outdated material, destructive to both our health and natural world, and is a serious threat to our seafood chain. It does not belongs in our city’s  waste management plan, as it is a costly contaminant to our compost and plastics recycling streams.

Hot food served in styrene foam may be especially dangerous to young children, pregnant women, and to those in low-income neighborhoods, who are more likely to be eating food in these toxic containers on a regular basis. Many people are still unaware that styrene leaches into hot foods and that these foam containers should never be microwaved.
 
The decision to ban polystyrene to-go containers belongs to the people of NYC, not to the chemical and polystyrene industry! 

PLEASE SHARE THIS!
Cafeteria Culture is working with 15 environmental and community organizations to ensure the passage of this critical legislation (learn more here).
 
Thank you for taking action. Let's get toxic and polluting polystyrene foam out of our city and out of our lives!

Reposted from Annie White's Resource Strategies Blog, Advancing Sustainable Solutions
www.resourcestrategiesconsulting.com

New York City has issued a request for bids for compostable plates used to serve over 150 million meals per year in New York City public school cafeterias. [i]

The resulting contract will be available for use by school districts that are members of the Urban School Food Alliance, including: Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Orange County and Miami-Dade County school districts. Combined, these school districts serve ~2.6 million meals daily and procure more than $530 million in food and food supplies annually.[ii] The bid is for a five year contract.

Key aspects of the specification include[iii]:

• 5 compartments able to hold 5 meal components
• Center compartment able to hold a ½ pint milk carton or bottle.
• Round or oval shapes for compartments are acceptable
• Prefer no pre-consumer materials used and where possible made entirely from one primary material such as sugarcane, post- consumer paper, wheat, etc.
• Must be food safe for all type and varieties of food and have FDA GRAS certification for food contact.
• Must not have a wax or plastic coating (polypropylene)[iv]
• Must be sturdy and durable, able to endure hot and cold food without seepage. Water proof and minor oil proof.
• All components of the product must be 100% certified compostable.
• Tested by a Biodegradable Products Institute certified lab and shown to be compliant with ASTM D6868.

The solicitation notes that the NYC Department of Education Food Program includes frozen foods, fresh produce, snack, grocery and non-food related cafeteria items, dairy, and baked goods. It also suggests that vendor familiarize themselves with food items served in the National School Food Lunch Program to better meet the needs of the districts.

Opportunity for Recyclable and Compostable Trays

While the solicitation specifies compostable trays, there is an opportunity to create trays that are both compostable and recyclable to provide greater choice regarding waste management options for each district. Cafeteria Culture an organization which has been instrumental in creating the shift toward zero waste school cafeterias in New York City has implemented the flip, tap, stack method of sorting which results in a clean, sorted stream of trays. Separating the trays in this way produces a stream of trays that can then be sent to a recycling or composting facility depending on the local infrastructure and the suitability of the design of the tray for recycling.

Please watch Cafeteria Culture’s video to see how it works:

How to Apply
Bids are due Nov. 19th at 4:00pm. A pre-bid conference will be held on Nov. 4th at 2:30pm.
The solicitation and requirements can be downloaded from the vendor portal here: https://vendorportal.nycenet.edu
[i] Combined breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners.
[ii] Urban School Food Alliance Celebrates One Year. July 15, 2013. Food Management.http://food-management.com/k-12-schools/urban-school-food-alliance-celebrates-one-year
[iii] Please download the solicitation for detailed specifications including dimension, thickness, etc.
[iv] Polypropylene is the only plastic coating explicitly specified in the specification included in the solicitation.
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During the past school year, our Cafeteria Culture team, volunteers, and student Cafeteria Rangers have worked hard and witnessed fantastic changes.

• We advocated for banning plastic-foam (polystyrene) trays and to-go containers, parading our giant NO-STYRO PUPPETS to show the public and elected officials what school garbage data actually looks like!

• We designed and taught K-5th grade curriculum, including stewardship, the how with the why of waste reduction, and how design, consumption & disposal choices connect to Climate Change.

• We collaborated at all levels, learning from students and school staff, then sharing valuable on-the-ground information with city and federal government agencies.

• We led student prototyping workshops; assisted with the piloting of new lunch trays, waste sorting stations, signage, and composting; and we surveyed students.

Our work has sparked a tremendous forward momentum, influencing policy and solid waste management citywide!
(** scroll to the bottom to read  what NYC School Chancellor Walcott has said about our work)

• NYC's 860,000 plastic-foam (polystyrene) school lunch trays used per day are on their way out!

• The city announced plans to roll out composting of all food waste in all 1700 public schools by Fall 2014.

• Schools and residents can now recycle all rigid plastics, including cafeteria sporks!

Thank you Mayor Bloomberg, NYC Department of Education and Department of Sanitation for significantly decreasing our carbon and methane producing school garbage and creating assets with  recyclable materials and composted food scraps!

Yet, with all the new procedures, bins, and signage on the way, two essential components for successfully reducing school garbage are missing: Student ENGAGEMENT and EDUCATION! 

Please DONATE and help us to complete Phase 1 of  our MULTI-MEDIA TOOLKIT, How to Set-up the Cafeteria Ranger Program, so we can share this with allschools, regardless of resources, next school year!

The Cafeteria Waste Reduction multi-media TOOLKIT  will include:

• "how-to" peer-to-peer video shorts
• animation
• songs
• downloadable signs and badges
• scheduling templates
• companion lesson plans

The TOOLKIT will provide schools with all the resources needed to implement a successful Cafeteria Ranger program on their own.