Cafeteria to Garden Programs? Who is doing a great job with cafeteria food "waste"

[Laura Plaut]

Hi All - Common Threads (Bellingham, WA) is thinking hard about how to better turn cafeteria food "waste" into garden treasure.

I'm wondering what you can gell me about:

1) The coolest compost systems you're aware of (either DIY or on the market)

2) Any school or district that you've seen doing a really nice job of "cafeteria to garden" composting

3) Any funding sources that you're aware of supporting this work

Thanks a million!  Laura

[JODI CRIMMINS]

Laura,

I would love to chat with you about this!  We have district wide student let vermicomposting!  

Jodi Crimmins  (she, her, hers) Garden and Sustainability TOSA ⚘ Oak Harbor Public Schools 350 S. Oak Harbor St.  | Oak Harbor, WA 98277 (360) 279-5994 | jcri...@ohsd.net www.ohsd.net

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[Laurie Taylor]

We do vermicomposting  at the schools which have gardens. Students help build the bins and are responsible for feeding and taking care of the worms.

We also compost school lunch waste and leftover fruit and vegetable snacks at a couple schools in dual chamber compost tumblers. They hold abut 600 pounds of food waste. We purchased them through Gardener's Supply Company (which offers a discount to schools). I don't think they offer a compost tumbler as large as the ones we have any more. Students help unpackage single-serving fruit and vegetables, load the compost tumblers, and spin the tumblers on a regular basis.

We received funding for our compost tumblers and composting supplies through Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS), SNAP-ed nutritional lesson money offered in the school district (Pick a Better Snack), and various school garden grants.

Laurie Taylor

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[Derby Stevens]

Hi Laura,

Thank you for asking those questions. Our school has been trying to get a cafeteria waste system in place.  We already compost our garden materials but would LOVE to compost and recycle as much as possible from the cafeteria.  

Thanks

Derby Stevens 

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[Chapman, Harold]

Hi all,

Chicago Public Schools chiming in. I would be very interested to hear from School Districts that have widespread composting programs in how you minimize pathogens in your piles. We have piloted zero-waste schools here, but minimizing risk of food borne illnesses from improperly maintained compost piles are a concern of ours. I'd love to be more active in this space.

Best regards,

Harold Chapman, M. AgEd* (preferred pronouns he/him, read more here) 

School Garden Specialist

Office of Student Health and Wellness | Chicago Public Schools

42 W. Madison Chicago, IL 60602

Phone: 773-553-1031 | Fax: 773-553-1883 | hnch...@cps.edu |  Subscribe to Healthy CPS Digest!

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[Tristana Pirkl (CE CEN)]

Great question, Laura!

 

Looping in the folks from the Education Fund (if they don’t already receive this email) who I know do composting in their “banana circles”-a good fit for a warmer climate than yours but I wonder if they can share their best practices.

 

All the best,

Tristana

 

		TRISTANA PIRKL Outdoor Education Leader WholeKidsFoundation.org A Whole Foods Market Foundation

 

 

From: <school-gar...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Chapman, Harold" <hnch...@cps.edu>
Reply-To: "school-gar...@googlegroups.com" <school-gar...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2019 at 4:01 PM
To: "school-gar...@googlegroups.com" <school-gar...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Cafeteria to Garden Programs? Who is doing a great job with cafeteria food "waste"

 

Hi all,

 

Chicago Public Schools chiming in. I would be very interested to hear from School Districts that have widespread composting programs in how you minimize pathogens in your piles. We have piloted zero-waste schools here, but minimizing risk of food borne illnesses from improperly maintained compost piles are a concern of ours. I'd love to be more active in this space.

 

Best regards,

 

Harold Chapman, M. AgEd* (preferred pronouns he/him, read more here) 

School Garden Specialist

Office of Student Health and Wellness | Chicago Public Schools

42 W. Madison Chicago, IL 60602

Phone: 773-553-1031 | Fax: 773-553-1883 | hnch...@cps.edu |  Subscribe to Healthy CPS Digest!

 

 

 

 

On Tue, May 21, 2019 at 3:57 PM Derby Stevens <dsteve...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Laura,

 

Thank you for asking those questions. Our school has been trying to get a cafeteria waste system in place.  We already compost our garden materials but would LOVE to compost and recycle as much as possible from the cafeteria.  

 

Thanks

Derby Stevens 

 

On Tue, May 21, 2019, 3:33 PM JODI CRIMMINS <jcri...@ohsd.net> wrote:

Laura,

I would love to chat with you about this!  We have district wide student let vermicomposting!  

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/school-garden-network/CAJsT%2BLvEgatuD3HG5KiE-zdNTYpc5k2oEmiF9gudCThUGEUDzA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Joelle Kohn]

Chiming in from San Diego, CA. A school in our Poway Unified School District, Monterey Ridge, has an awesome program highlighted here. https://www.countynewscenter.com/school-kids-talk-trash-and-composting/

As for pathogens and post-consumer produce, it's been okayed through our Food & Nutrition Dept as long as it is vermicomposting. Regular composting needs to just be garden waste and cannot be purchased produce.

Joelle Kohn

Garden Coordinator Volunteer, Chaparral Elementary School

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[Pamela Flory]

Hi All.  I'm the Garden Coordinator at Princeton Day School and we've been working on a good system for about 10 years and each year we tweak it a bit more.  We have a great land resource so our Upper School Advisory groups bring the compost out to an open pile system each day.  I just purchased the wire composting bin from Johnny's Selected Seeds as we have been attracting some wildlife.  We want to minimize our impact in that regard.  I have about 4 piles going, one for dumping, 2 active and one finished.  I try and turn them every 3 weeks with a tractor.  The active piles run about 130-150 for about 2 weeks.  If you have the space and equipment, this is a great system.  The compost is in 5 gallon buckets and the kids wheel it out to the pile on a fat tired wagon.  We cover with leaves in the Fall and then switch to straw when we run out.  We make lots of compost....so much so that eliminating food waste is our next focus.

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Pam Flory

609 480-8902

Garden Coordinator and Educator

Princeton Day School

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[Natalie McKinney]

Aloha,

Check out the Zero Waste Revolution at Kaʻohao (Lanikai) Public Charter Schools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXxcC_nTFD4, winner of a 2016 EPA Food Recovery Challenge, K-12 Schools division

This project has turned into the Windward Zero Waste School Hui https://zerowasteschoolhui.org/ which is at 5 schools in the Hawaii State DOE Windward Complex. They use hot compost piles and vermicomposting systems on campus to create soil that then get sold to the community.

Great work happening here!

Aloha,

Natalie

Natalie McKinney
Executive Director
Kōkua Hawaiʻi Foundation
PO Box 866, Haleiwa, HI 96712
(808) 638-5145 Office

nat...@kokuahawaiifoundation.org
www.kokuahawaiifoundation.org

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[Deborah Labelle]

Hi all,

 

I am not in this group but would like to be! Thank you Tristana for bringing us into the conversation.

 

One of the foundations for all of our Food Forests is a banana circle. Please see this link for the basic idea https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/chapter-10-the-humid-tropics/banana-circle/ .

While bananas work fantastic in our climate, we have substituted other trees at some of our schools, such as papaya, due to location or other issues.

 

The “circles” work best with greedy trees or plants that traditionally need a lot of nutrients, hence the composting in the middle, and why bananas work so well for us. But any tree could be substituted, so up north maybe an apple circle would work better, or a tomato circle. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

 

Debi La Belle

Food Forests for Schools | The Education Fund

6713 Main Street | Suite 240 | Miami Lakes, FL 33014

P. 305.968.8546 | www. educationfund.org

 

 

        

[Manzano Janelle]

One Cool Earth in San Luis Obispo/Santa Barbara CA  do a great job at setting schools up to collect waste from the cafeteria. I’d look into them!

 

Janelle Manzano
Food and Nutrition Services Dept. || Farm to School Program Specialist

858.836.8901|| jman...@sandi.net || 6735 Gifford Way, Rm. 5 || San Diego, CA 92111-6509

  

“Food is not just fuel. Food is about family, food is about community, food is about identity. And we nourish all those things when we eat well.” – Michael Pollan

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[Amy Bowman]

Deborah,

Doug and I are looking forward to seeing you and Eddie in Wisconsin!

Amy

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Amy Bowman

Extension Associate

STEM Education

Plants For Human Health Institute

North Carolina Research Campus
704-250-5475

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"All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties."

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[Greg Ellis]

Thanks for the plug, Janelle!

One Cool Earth had a grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to mainstream composting at 17 schools, collecting lunch waste.  We've compiled our system for easy replication here: http://www.onecoolearth.org/zero-waste.html

Even after the grant has expired, we see many of the schools continuing the program with or without our support.  We also had two districts remove styrofoam lunch trays after we quantified just how many were being trashed, and the volume they took up.  This one time, we literally built a house (well, at least a shed) with all the trays: http://www.onecoolearth.org/articles/micheals-story

The cost of the system ranges from less than $100 to more than $1000, depending on whether you can get donated hoppers (the big plastic bins, which agricultural operations usually have and will give away the slightly damaged ones).

We haven't seen compost specific funding come along, but I know that in CA there is a local governmental body, Integrated Waste Management Authority, that funds waste education.  They used to contract a private company to offer school composting.  Maybe check with your municipalities to see if there's a parallel body in WA?  Our NOAA grant was tied to Marine Debris through the NOAA prevention program.  We did do a study at one of our school sites and showed that by setting up waste sorting to increase recycling and composting, we saved the school $3000/year in waste hauling (because recycling is free, while landfilled waste is paid by the cubic yard/number of pickups).  Unfortunately we were never able to access that money but maybe someone else will have more luck.

Please do reach out if you'd like any more info, and kudos to you for taking on compost!!

All the best,

Greg Ellis

Growth Officer, One Cool Earth

gr...@onecoolearth.org

On Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 9:55:59 AM UTC-7, Manzano Janelle wrote:

One Cool Earth in San Luis Obispo/Santa Barbara CA  do a great job at setting schools up to collect waste from the cafeteria. I’d look into them!

 

Janelle Manzano
Food and Nutrition Services Dept. || Farm to School Program Specialist

858.836.8901|| jman...@sandi.net || 6735 Gifford Way, Rm. 5 || San Diego, CA 92111-6509

  

“Food is not just fuel. Food is about family, food is about community, food is about identity. And we nourish all those things when we eat well.” – Michael Pollan

 

 

 

 

From: school-gar...@googlegroups.com [mailto:school-gar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Laura Plaut
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2019 1:32 PM
To: School Garden Support Organization Network <school-gar...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Cafeteria to Garden Programs? Who is doing a great job with cafeteria food "waste"

 

Hi All - Common Threads (Bellingham, WA) is thinking hard about how to better turn cafeteria food "waste" into garden treasure.

 

I'm wondering what you can gell me about:

1) The coolest compost systems you're aware of (either DIY or on the market)

2) Any school or district that you've seen doing a really nice job of "cafeteria to garden" composting

3) Any funding sources that you're aware of supporting this work

 

Thanks a million!  Laura

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[Andrew Nowak]

Hey Laura-

I just visited the best program of cafeteria composting in Hawaii that I have seen before.

https://zerowasteschoolhui.org

Awesome program, but very resource and people intensive. They are doing daily composting of all food and milk waste from the cafeteria and creating compost sell and to use in the school gardens.

Take a look at the website above. It is a model to study closely and to replicate elsewhere. But again very resource (wood chips) people intensive.

Andy

[Laura Plaut]

WOW - you all are awesome!  Such a treasure trove of resources.  We'll dig in!