The Suffield Middle School is scheduled to launch a permanent food scrap collection program on August 28 for sixth graders and September 8 for seventh and eighth graders, according to Sustainable Suffield’s co-chair Anna Kristin Daub-Murphy.
It will become the last of Suffield’s schools to join in collecting its food scraps.
To introduce their new food scrap collection program, Suffield Middle School will be holding instructional presentations similar to this one. Pictured is the 2023 launch of the Spaulding School food scrap program.
“This is exciting to finalize our school food scrap initiative,” said Daub-Murphy, “and for sixth graders, there will be no learning period since they collected food scraps at McAlister School last year.”
She said an informal committee comprised of school personnel, the company hauling away the food scraps, and Sustainable Suffield is planning fun kickoff presentations that will likely include videos, demonstrations and prizes for correct answers from the kids.
She credited Suffield Middle School Principal Ken Smith for his solid support, along with Joann Moriarty, director of Suffield youth services and Daniel Pestrichello, municipal accounts manager from USA Waste & Recycling.
She offered special praise for Julia Porter from the middle school’s chapter of the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. “Sustainable Suffield values student-led initiatives, and is thrilled that the FCCLA student leaders enthusiastically jumped in during their summer off to help plan the launch for grades seven and eight.”
Daub-Murphy said that during the 2024 September-June school year, the high school, Spaulding and McAlister schools collected a total of 13,242 pounds of food scraps. She’s hopeful that with Suffield Middle School coming online, the total could increase by an additional 4,000 to 5,000 pounds.
According to her statistics, when the food scrap totals from the town dumpster behind the town hall are included for the same nine-month school year, Suffield kept 26,762 pounds of food scraps from the landfill.
Suffield Academy, which has its own food scrap collection program, diverted 64,200 pounds of food scraps during the same period.
So, in total, counting the town dumpster, schools and Suffield Academy, 90,962 pounds–over 45 tons–of food scraps were kept out of the landfill the last school year, where they would have created dangerous methane, a global-warming gas much more potent than carbon dioxide.