CafCu PRESS
Plastic Free Lunch Day USA press
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CBS News, April 24, 2023
Plastic Free Lunch Day movement spreading across the country⬇︎ |
ABC7 news, November 2, 2022
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NYC Plastic Free Lunch Day May 16, 2022
Monday, May 16 was the first New York City-wide
PLASTIC FREE LUNCH DAY in school cafeterias across NYC! A step to reduce plastic packaging in public school cafeterias and to protect student health press release -> |
News 12, May 18, 2022
Brooklyn students & staff inspired to host plastic-free lunch day at school P.S. 15 students in Brooklyn have inspired thousands of other students in the NYC school system to participate in plastic-free lunch day. |
6 Resources For Anyone Looking To Go Zero Waste
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LAKW radio - One Planet: In 'Microplastic Madness,' Kids Take On The Plastic Pollution CrisisBy ROSE AGUILAR & LEA CEASRINE • FEB 16, 2020
LISTEN TO THE "YOUR CALL" ->...we speak with one of the founders of the upcoming Bay Area International Children's Film Festival and one of the filmmakers and youth climate activists featured in this year’s program.
The film Microplastic Madness takes us to Red Hook, Brooklyn – a community on the frontlines of the climate crisis – where youth are taking action against plastic pollution. How are youth experiencing and confronting the climate crisis? Guests include, Maggie Dalencour, co-narrator of Microplastic Madness |
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Red Hook Star Review - February 1, 2019
“I’ve learned a lot of things, not just the cycle of Styrofoam and plastics,” Dalencour told the RHSR. “I’ve also learned how to communicate with my peers better; I was kind of quiet, but it gave me a way to open up.” (read more ->) |
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WNCY.org, April 23, 2018
Cafeteria Rangers Are Learning How to Reduce School Waste Cafeteria Rangers from PS 188 the Island school spoke with WNYC report Shumita Basu for Earth Day! 
"I like it because we're helping the universe and we're being responsible." It's not as simple as setting up a five-bin station in any cafeteria. Cafeteria Culture outreach director Rhonda Keyser said when they first arrive at a school, they start by teaching the students Garbology 101, which Keyser described as "the journey of our garbage and the environmental injustice along the way." (more ->)
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Ecowatch
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Green Inside and Out Interview with Cafeteiria Culture Director Debby Lee Cohen on WUSB radio from Stony Brook Univeristy, NY.
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CafCu students speak out for the bag bill
at NY City Hall Bag Bill Rally - April 13, 2016
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Thank you to the students and parents from CafCu partner schools who came to the rally: NEST+m 3rd graders (pictured below), MS246 Walt Whitman 8th graders, Tompkins Sqaure Middle School 7th graders, and The Earth School, 5th graders.
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Amy Zimmer , May 2015
MANHATTAN — City schools will begin to phase out Styrofoam lunch trays this month in favor of eco-friendly compostable ones, the Department of Education is expected to announce Wednesday.
(Excerpt:) "It's really gigantic that New York City is doing this," said public school mom Debby Lee Cohen, who co-founded Cafeteria Culture, which is piloting a program to improve school participation in the composting program. Cohen wants to make sure students, teachers, administrators and custodians understand why schools are making the switch. Cafeteria signs about what to sort is insufficient without classroom education on why kids are sorting, she said. 
CafCu's giant no-styro data Puppets and PS 34 M's fabulous ECO-stars, alum of our ARTS+ACTION program, made the press! Watch them all here!
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NY City Hall Bag Bill Rally - PS 34 M students
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"School Lunchroom Movement Wins NY Styrene Fight"
Earth Eats, January 2, 2014, by Chad Bouchard 
A child works the arms of Cafeteria Culture's giant puppet made of school styrene foam trays during a demonstration calling for a citywide ban in New York City. (Photo: Isabel Schuman for Cafeteria Culture)
(Excerpt:) "The decision marks the culmination of a six-year fight that started over styrene use in the city’s public school lunchrooms. Debby Lee Cohen, a public school mom and the director and co-founder of Cafeteria Culture, mustered for action with other environmentally-minded moms and teachers in the spring of 2009 to stop the waste of millions of polystyrene trays per day. Soon after, they launched a kid-driven pilot project to sort waste in lunchrooms, and 15 other groups in the city took up the cause. “This landmark decision puts another nail in the coffin of toxic styrenes. It’s a victory for our health and our future!” Lee Cohen said in a release. “Our children’s children’s children will be thankful!” Cafeteria Culture has pushed for compostable trays to replace polystyrene ones, and spurred collective purchasing to keep costs down." |
華人參與策劃 小學生推塑膠袋法案
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January 8, 2015
Department of Sanitation Determines Expanded Polystyrene Foam Not Recyclable
NEW YORK – The de Blasio Administration today announced that as of July 1, 2015, food service establishments, stores and manufacturers may not possess, sell, or offer for use single service Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam articles or polystyrene loose fill packaging, such as “packing peanuts” in New York City...
(Press Release includes this quote from Cafeteria Culture)
“This landmark decision to ban toxic and polluting styrene foam products is a huge grassroots victory for our children and our communities,” said Debby Lee Cohen, Director/Founder of Cafeteria Culture, founded as Styrofoam Out of Schools. “We applaud Mayor de Blasio for his longtime dedication to eliminating styrene foam, bringing us one step closer to becoming a zero-waste, climate-smart city!”
Department of Sanitation Determines Expanded Polystyrene Foam Not Recyclable
NEW YORK – The de Blasio Administration today announced that as of July 1, 2015, food service establishments, stores and manufacturers may not possess, sell, or offer for use single service Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam articles or polystyrene loose fill packaging, such as “packing peanuts” in New York City...
(Press Release includes this quote from Cafeteria Culture)
“This landmark decision to ban toxic and polluting styrene foam products is a huge grassroots victory for our children and our communities,” said Debby Lee Cohen, Director/Founder of Cafeteria Culture, founded as Styrofoam Out of Schools. “We applaud Mayor de Blasio for his longtime dedication to eliminating styrene foam, bringing us one step closer to becoming a zero-waste, climate-smart city!”
New York City Hall - Rally for foam ban bill - Nov. 25, 2013-
Cafeteria Culture's giant No-styro Puppets and our PS 34 M Eco-stars!
Cafeteria Culture's giant No-styro Puppets and our PS 34 M Eco-stars!
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PS34 M students with City Council Member Lew Fiddler, Cafeteria Culture's Debby Lee & giant No-styro puppets
"Why Ban Foam Food Containers? The Recycling Plan Bloomberg Doesn't Want" Gotham Gazette, by Chester Soria, Dec 08, 201
"Reduce, refuse, recycle: Reactions to proposed Styrofoam ban" Home Reporter News, MEAGHAN MCGOLDRICK, December 4, 2013 “It would be irresponsible for the City Council to support the manufacture, use and industry-backed recycling scheme of a food container made with the carcinogenic chemical styrene, when there are plenty of affordable safe alternatives,” said Debby Lee Cohen, founder and director of Cafeteria Culture, just one of over 500 neighborhood/student groups that see the citywide restriction of Styrofoam sale as an improvement that puts public health and the environment first." |
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WNYC News Foam: Ban it — or Recycle it?
Monday, November 25, 2013 WNYC, LISTEN here! By Sarah Gonzalez : Reporter, WNYC/NJPR Two foam monsters made out of dirty cups and take-out containers towered 20 feet high on the steps of City Hall as schoolchildren urged council members to pass a bill to ban foam plates and cups, because they are not biodegradable. Instead, those foam objects sit in landfills for 500 years, says New York City Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway. But the foam manufacturers and lobbyists who oppose the ban are pushing for program which would instead require foam products in the city to be recycled – not just cups and take-out containers, but the block-like foam that comes when you purchase a television. Reporter Sarah Gonzalez spoke with Host Amy Eddings about the challenges of recycling foam in New York City, and the cost to businesses and consumers if the foam ban passes. |
New Compostable Plates replace foam trays in the 6 largest US School Districts!
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Urban Schools Aim for Environmental Revolution
The New York Times - by Michael Wines, December 1, 2013 "Nothing seemed special about the plates from which students at a handful of Miami schools devoured their meals for a few weeks last spring — round, rigid and colorless, with four compartments for food and a fifth in the center for a carton of milk. Looks, however, can be deceiving: They were the vanguard of what could become an environmental revolution in schools across the United States. With any uneaten food, the plates, made from sugar cane, can be thrown away and turned into a product prized by gardeners and farmers everywhere: compost. If all goes as planned, compostable plates will replace plastic foam lunch trays by September not just for the 345,000 students in the Miami-Dade County school system, but also for more than 2.6 million others nationwide. That would be some 271 million plates a year, replacing enough foam trays to create a stack of plastic several hundred miles tall." LA Times - By Teresa Watanabe
"The districts are also aiming for more eco-friendly practices — replacing polystyrene and plasticwith biodegradable trays and flatware, for instance." |
Big Cities Join Together for Better School Food
NRDC SWITCHBOARD, Posted December 3, 2013, Mark Izeman's blog Excerpt: " Thus, NRDC, as part of our overall food advocacy work in New York and around the county, is thrilled to be working closely with the Alliance. Like these school districts, we see huge potential through this unique coalition to build new national markets for sustainable food and other products. We're also pleased to be working with the many groups who have done such great work to date—some real local and national school-food leaders including School Food Focus, Cafeteria Culture, Wellness in the Schools, and New York City Coalition for Healthy School Food. ----------- Huffington Post Los Angeles - By Barbara Jones "'Food service leaders also want to make the meals more appealing, so there may come a day when students get their meal on a plate rather than a tray -- just as they do at home,' Binkle said. There's even talk of getting rid of the spork." ----------- Tampa Bay Business Journal - By PR Newswire "'We want to give a national voice to a healthier meal program where costs are contained,' says Eric Goldstein, chief executive officer of School Support Services for the New York City Department of Education, who spearheaded this alliance. |
THANK YOU, Mayor Bill DeBlasio, NY State Senator Liz Krueger and NY State Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh
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CBS New York
"Giant styrofoam marionettes were used at City Hall on Monday to protest the use of the material in New York City school lunch trays, WCBS 880′s Rich Lamb reported. Cohen praised the city’s Department of Education for eliminating Styrofoam trays on Tuesdays, when paper boats are used, but insisted that more must be done." |
Members of the press with media related inquiries, please contact us at:
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T: (347) 618-1875
[email protected]
T: (347) 618-1875