Cathy Procopio, Green Team Adviser, documents trash output prior to “No Trash Day.” Photo courtesy of Hughes Middle School’s Green Team.
According to recently collected data, students at Hughes Middle School in Bixby Knolls create about 800 pounds of trash each day. Last Thursday, however, the entire school participated in a “No Trash Day” exercise and was able to reduce its waste to a slender 245 pounds.
The school’s very active Green Team—made of middle and elementary school students, teachers and parents who volunteer their time to green the campus through recycling, waste reduction programs and water-wise landscaping projects—organized the “No Trash Day,” in an effort to make students aware of how the actions of individuals and communities can help to solve environmental problems.
For one day, the whole campus strove to accomplish three things: avoid single-use and disposable products (plastic water bottles, plastic baggies, paper napkins, etc.), recover all the recyclable materials from the school waste stream and to collect food waste for composting and farm animal feed.
In coordination with the Environmental Services Bureau of Long Beach and Spring Street Farms, the school was able to reduce its daily waste by more than 70 percent.
The event was held as part of the Green Apple Day of Service, an initiative of the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council, a global movement to put all children in schools where they have clean and healthy air to breathe, where energy and resources are conserved and where “they can be inspired to dream of a brighter future.”