If you could bottle the enthusiasm shown by 8-year-olds Kinsley Smith and Patrick Wheeler over the food scrap collection program they took part in last year at Spaulding Elementary School and apply it to other town issues, solutions could become much less intimidating.
Second graders Kinsley Smith and Patrick Wheeler were chosen by their teacher, Kelly Colangelo, as spokespersons for the successful Spaulding School food waste diversion program.
They are ardent defenders of diverting food waste from the waste stream. And that goes for their over 400 classmates–kindergarteners, 1st and 2nd graders–who helped launch the program last November, according to Spaulding Elementary School Principal Gina Olearczyk. “The program was really led and owned by the kids. They bought into it so quickly,” she said.
And the kids did well, according to Daniel Pestrichello, organics and food waste manager at USA Waste and Recycling, the vendor that carried away the food waste. Spaulding diverted 7,100 lbs. of food waste from the waste stream last school year, he said.
Suffield’s food waste goes to anaerobic digesters at New England farms. It’s mixed with cow manure to create methane gas, which runs generators that send electricity back into the grid, powering hundreds of homes. Byproducts are liquid organic fertilizer and bedding for farm animals.
Pestrichello said there was no problem with contamination at Spaulding, such as recyclable cans being dropped into the food waste bins. Considering the kids self-monitored the program, that’s commendable. No adults stood by the refuse bins and directed disposal except in the beginning.
Food scraps from lunch preparation in the two Spaulding cafeterias were also collected. Every evening, custodial staff emptied the food waste bins from the food prep area and the cafeterias into a parking lot dumpster for USA Waste and Recycling’s weekly pick-up.
How it began
According to Pestrichello and Olearczyk, First Selectman Colin Moll was the principal driver in starting the Spaulding program. Olearczyk remembered Moll meeting with her about the idea and bringing along Anna-Kristin Daub-Murphy, who leads the Sustainable Suffield Task Force and Keila Silva, the high schooler who heads the Suffield Sustainability Council. Olearczyk was sold. Then Moll approached USA Waste and Recycling about handling the logistics.
A food waste diversion program had been operating at the high school for about a year but wasn’t as successful as hoped, partially because it was more difficult to change the habits of adolescents than to teach new habits to elementary school children, Olearczyk noted.
More meetings followed. Pestrichello said, “Colin Moll was fantastic throughout the whole process. He was very hands-on at the meetings making sure everything went smoothly and that we had the town support.”
Vendor commitment
As the town’s commitment solidified, USA Waste and Recycling looked at how it could help ensure success. Pestrichello said that the Spaulding program became its “first all-encompassing waste diversion program with intense educational material, video lessons, infographics and involvement with the kids hands-on.” Since many kindergartners can’t read, the firm produced large, color-coded posters showing graphics of what was acceptable.
A green-bordered poster showed what food scraps should be dropped into a brown 35-gallon bin positioned in front of it. A blue-bordered poster displayed pictures of recyclables that should go into a matching blue bin. A black-bordered poster showed pictures of trash that should go into a matching black or gray bin. According to Patrick Wheeler, the posters helped him most when learning the process.
Pestrichello was also featured in a short “How it Works” video. In it, he stands in front of the bins and dumps food scraps, recyclables and trash from a lunch tray into them. Kinsley Smith found that this helped her most in understanding the program.
Town effort
Town groups pitched in to support the program. Upfront, Sustainable Suffield and Youth Services held numerous planning sessions with USA Waste and Recycling. Later, Sustainable Suffield covered the hauling costs for the year, provided bins for classroom collection of snack waste, donated ice cream for a year-end celebration and provided school messaging to parents. Youth Services donated food for a kids’ sorting practice and reward stickers. At launch, the high school’s Sustainability Council demonstrated how to separate and dispose of the food scraps.
Model program
Pestrichello said that the Spaulding program worked so well that it will be duplicated at McAlister Intermediate School this month when the school launches its food scrap diversion program. He said that USA Waste and Recycling now recommends the Spaulding program to other Connecticut and Western Massachusetts schools.
Meanwhile, back home, Kinsley Smith and Patrick Wheeler continue to speak up when their families don’t segregate waste correctly, their parents said.
When she grows up, Kinsley wants to be a dance teacher, and Patrick wants to be a chicken farmer. While those aspirations could likely change in the future, something tells me their commitment to improving the environment won’t.