Lovin Elementary School in Lawrenceville, Georgia, has expanded composting and sharing programs that help cut cafeteria food waste, including using scraps for its chicken coop.
The Story
At Lovin Elementary School in Lawrenceville, Georgia, students collect leftover lunch scraps in buckets that are later sent to the school’s outdoor compost bin.
Other parts of the program focus on sharing: students place unopened milk in a shared refrigerator so classmates can grab it as a snack or take it home.
Uneaten salad scraps are directed to the school’s chicken coop, while the composting program has grown to use vermicomposting bins with worms.
The school, about 40 miles (64 kilometres) east of Atlanta, is one example of U.S. schools using food waste audits, shared tables and adjusted lunch choices to reduce how much cafeteria food ends up in the trash.
Student Aissatou Brown said, “Now there's not a lot going to the landfill, and there's not just scraps everywhere,” adding, “And it feels like we're saving the planet.”
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