By Dr. Ben Churchill Superintendent Carlsbad Unified School District
Banana peels and coffee cups, foam trays and juice boxes, copy paper and lunch bags — Carlsbad’s schools generate tons of trash every year. County landfills are filling up, with plastic water bottles buried under apple cores and yesterday’s homework.
To manage the profusion of trash in landfills, the California Legislature in 2012 passed Assembly Bill 341, requiring that 75% of waste be diverted from landfills by 2020. Right now, Carlsbad schools recycle only about 15 to 20% of waste. State law mandates that we do better. And we believe that it is the right thing to do.
Last year our school district inaugurated the CUSD Sustainability Committee, consisting of representatives from Student Services; Facilities; Nutritional Services; Custodial Services; Instructional Services; our waste hauler, Republic Services; and Green Teams at each school, made up of staff and students. With the support of our Board of Trustees, the Carlsbad Educational Foundation’s (CEF) Grant Writing Collaborative submitted a grant application and received $30,000 from the Carlsbad Charitable Foundation. As a result, we are rolling out new recycling programs in all elementary schools located within the City of Carlsbad (including three elementary schools in Encinitas Union School District), serving approximately 8,000 students.
This grant will support our schools in:
Implementing a lunch waste sorting initiative. For instance, rather than throw styrofoam lunch trays into the trash, we will “tap and stack” them, and they will be picked up to be recycled. This alone should increase our diversion and lower our waste.
Instituting new recycling programs. All CUSD classrooms will implement a “twinning” recycling program: a tan trash container and a blue recycle container will be placed in each room. We will have a “single stream recycling” process with our waste hauler, Republic, so there will be no need to sort bottles, aluminum cans, or paper anymore. New signage will clearly define what is for recycling and what is trash.
Inaugurating innovative educational programs. Students and staff will learn about the importance of reducing waste and the impact that personal behavior can have on the larger community. The education components will include interactive assemblies from the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation at each of the elementary schools, and ongoing training throughout the year. The Solana Center will also provide lunchtime monitoring to support the development of better recycling habits.
The CEF Grantwriting Collaborative’s Chair, Rosemary Eshelman, says, “The Carlsbad Charitable Foundation grant targets elementary schools, but its efforts will have an impact districtwide. It will promote environmental stewardship and significantly reduce the amount of refuse sent to the landfill from our schools.”
We have work to do to sustain these recycling efforts. The ongoing education necessary for maintaining recycling programs at each site will be supported by staff, students and parents. The school district is also having conversations with the City of Carlsbad to collaborate to lower all diversion across the city. Once our recycling programs are established, we expect to save money by reducing waste hauling expenses and increasing recycling. More important, our students will learn how to act responsibly to protect our environment.