South Brunswick Schools Combat Waste With New Green Initiative

The elementary schools in South Brunswick adopted a new “Zero Waste Initiative” last month to help combat the amount of garbage being placed in landfills.

South Brunswick is the first school district in New Jersey to adopt the program, aimed also at helping educate children about the environment, said Amanda Rosenberg, principal of Dayton School and Deans School.

The initiative is a product of cooperation between Waste Management Services, the administration, and also the custodial staff of the schools, as well as food provider Chartwells USA, said Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction for the South Brunswick School District, Joanne Kerekes.

The program saved the district almost 10 percent of its total cost for recycling and trash services by implementing this full-fledged green plan, said Larry Lapidus, a public sector education representative for Waste Management Services.

“Every item we divert from the landfill is an item that we don’t have to pay to bury,” Lapidus said. “And we’re able to take the recycling that we get, which is a commodity, and get money for it. So everybody wins. The school districts recycle more, they save money, and we’re able to sell the finished product.”

The program prior to this utilized a traditional recycling system for separating paper, bottles and cans, and disposing of everything else in the trash bin, Rosenberg said.

But each class now has a compost bin, where food waste, also known as organic recyclables, is placed, and a standard recycling bin, where single-stream recyclables — traditional cans, paper, and plastics — are disposed of, she said.

Trash receptacles have been taken out of classrooms altogether.                   

The program underwent a trial run at Dayton and Deans schools late in the summer, and was implemented in every elementary school in the district in early October, Kerekes said.                 

The initiative began by getting the staff to consciously consider whether the things they interacted with were organically recyclable, and then progressed to teaching the children about how to throw away their leftovers from lunch appropriately, she said.

The final step in the process was the full education of the students on the importance of recycling everywhere, as opposed to just inside the cafeteria, Kerekes added.

“The teachers and I believed that you can’t have students recycle one way in the cafeteria and not have them do it the same way throughout their schooling,” she said. “That’s not good learning. So we took on a full school initiative.”

For sanitation purposes, the bins are emptied into a larger compost bin each day located in the cafeteria, according to Rosenberg.

“The lids on these compost bins seal shut, so it’s actually more sanitary than our dumpsters,” Rosenberg said. “It’s picked up on such a regular basis, and the lids are sealed shut … so we haven’t experienced any issues.”

All the food waste is picked up by dedicated Waste Management trucks, taken to a facility in Wilmington, Del, where it is then turned into organic mulch after an 8-10 week process, Lapidus said.

“The finished product is taken like anything else,” he said. “It’s sold to landscapers and homeowners, and we’re hoping in the near future that we’ll be able to take the product, bag it, brand it, and sell it. That would be an ultimate goal.”

Failure for this program is not an option, he said, noting how he, Kerekes and other teachers got together, formed what they call a “green team,” and created a curriculum that teaches children how to recycle organically.                  

Because the initiative is still new, it is projected the benefits for the school district are only going to increase as they get better acquainted with the system, he said.

Though she couldn’t speak on behalf of the district business administrator Anthony Tonzini, Rosenberg said she has heard talk of bringing more green plans for the district, in the form of solar energy and energy conservation.

“In this day and age, [recycling] has got to be at the forefront of our minds,” Rosenberg said. “Our earth, our environment, and helping to educate our kids in how best to treat our earth and environment is important. So if we can establish some good habits now and to help make a difference … then it’s just going to make our society that much better of a place.”