Zero Waste Classroom Challenge Week 3 Update

We are three weeks into the challenge, and just one week away from when we will say sayonara to our landfill bin. Here’s a rundown of where we stand at this juncture.

Landfill inventory

We have continued to monitor and chart everything that ends up in our landfill bin. By far the most common items continue to be food wrappers. Both foil-lined wrappers and soft plastic wrappers are frequent finds. Another common item has been adhesive backs, which are the slippery little pieces of white shiny paper that come on the back of stickers and adhesives, such as Command hooks and stickers.

 

A Challenge

A lot of the trash that is being generated is coming from kids’ lunches/snacks, which they don’t have a ton of control over. We have been actively encouraging kids to talk with their families about packing less single-use items in their lunches, AND we understand that this can be a hard sell for families who are already super busy and stressed. Which brings us to….

The Zero Waste Classroom Challenge One Change Pledge

Since we have not seen much reduction in our landfill trash simply from tracking it and charting it daily, we decided to invite kids to make a pledge to change just one small thing that will help us get closer to our goal of being a zero waste classroom. They had some great ideas, including making popcorn at home rather than buying it in individual bags, eating dinner leftovers for lunch the next day, and making art out of foil and plastic wrappers rather than throwing them away. A few well-intentioned kids had the idea of unwrapping their granola bars at home before bringing them to school so they wouldn’t have to throw the wrapper away at school, which led to an interesting discussion about how we are actually trying to eliminate landfill waste everywhere, not just in our classroom.

TBD whether these pledges will make a dent in our numbers. Fingers crossed!

What about the teachers?

We recognize that we have a big role to play in this challenge as well, as we are the ones making all the purchases for classroom supplies and materials. Here are a few of the changes/improvements we have implemented since starting the Zero Waste Classroom Challenge:

The question we continue to struggle with is: Is it better to replace perfectly usable but non-recyclable/compostable items that we already have with more eco-friendly ones, or wait until we use them up before replacing them? We’ve decided on a hybrid approach. For items that we use all the time, we opted to replace them and to donate our unused supplies to other classrooms or offices. This feels a bit like we’re just passing the buck so it becomes someone else’s problem, but the reality is that most teachers aren’t trying to go zero waste right now and will end up just buying more Elmer’s glue, Scotch tape, etc., so we might as well give them ours to use rather than tossing it out. For items that we use less often, like markers, we are choosing to use them up and then replace them with more earth-friendly alternatives as needed. It’s certainly not a perfect system, but it seems like a decent compromise for now.