A comprehensive composting and recycling program could be coming soon to a school near you — and to the nonprofit group making the pitch for its adoption, it could save real money, tons of food bound for the dumpster to help those in need, and even contribute a little towards saving the planet itself.

The Rhode Island School Recycling Project began in 2001 in partnership with the RI Resource Recovery Corporation and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) to improve recycling in RI schools, which was among the lowest in New England at the time at 18 percent. By the end of that iteration of the program, according to their website, the recycling rate in Rhode Island schools had increased to 68 percent.

More recently, funded by a grant from the RI Attorney General’s office, the group performed 15 food audits in 2019 within three public school districts (including elementary, middle, and high schools) in urban, suburban, and rural settings.

The results spoke for themselves in terms of the potential progress to be made.

“RI public schools waste approximately 13.8 tons of food each week, which translates to 2,500 tons for the school year,” reads the project’s website. “With 388 tons of that food unopened or untouched: fruit, granola bars, yogurt, cheese sticks and milk.”

In a presentation to the East Providence School Committee on Oct. 30, the group estimated that 92 tons of food is wasted each year throughout all East Providence schools; with over half (57.2 tons) of that coming just from elementary schools.

Of those 92 tons of food waste, over 20 tons is “perfectly good” food, including unopened yogurts, whole fruits and vegetables, and unopened milks, among other items. This all occurs while 38 percent of Rhode Islanders face food insecurity, and East Providence specifically having the highest number of people utilizing SNAP in the East Bay.

To make matters worse, instead of being separated in any meaningful way, all of that food waste is simply chucked into lunchroom trash bags, which are thrown into dumpsters and carted off to the state’s landfill — which is another huge impetus for the work being done by the RI School Recycling Project.

“We have a tsunami coming at us. In 2046, the landfill will be full,” Warren Heyman, organizing director of the project said. “The cost of shipping trash will only go up because nobody is going to want the trash shipped to their neighborhood. So anything that we can do to prolong the life of our collective landfill, everybody in the state is going to benefit from.”

How does the program work?
Known as the “Get Food Smart” program, the concept is pretty simple.

Every school participating in the program creates a sorting area within their cafeteria, separated into five different stations: one for placing untouched or unopened food that can later be donated to an in-school pantry; another to dump liquids; another for recycling; another for legitimate trash to be sent to the landfill; and a station to place food waste, which will be bagged and taken away by a local composting company.

Each school nominates student volunteers to become “cafeteria rangers” who instruct their classmates on how the sorting works, and encouraging them through the process. The students are assisted by janitorial staff, who oversee the process.

Importantly, the RI School Recycling Project will train staff and students during a two-week introductory period to ensure a smooth launch, and they cover the costs of everything — including the compost and liquid bins, disposable gloves and compost liners, and the transportation fees for shipping off the compost — for one year.

“We are well aware that everybody in the school setting is working to capacity, so we make sure to do all of the heavy lifting,” said Colin Windham, an East Providence resident and project facilitator for the group.

Even when the subsidization from the group goes away, the cost of the program is not significant. According to Heyman, a box of 500, 8-gallon compostable liners was $65, a box of 200 disposable gloves was $17, and compost companies charge around $20 a week per tote carted off the property.

With less trash, he explained, schools can see a savings in waste hauling by reducing the number of dumpsters, the size of dumpsters, and/or frequency of pickups. “Reducing the size or the frequency or the number of dumpsters should more than offset that cost,” he said.
He argued this point by sharing some case studies from some of the schools where the project is already active.

At Agnes Little Elementary School in Pawtucket, Heyman said that they went from 16 bags of cafeteria trash going into the dumpster (281 pounds total) each and every school day, to just one bag (around 6.5 pounds) each day. At Chariho High School, they went from 19 bags of trash each day to just two. At Birchwood Middle School in North Providence, one of the first schools to participate in the program, they have recovered a total of 1,695 pounds of good food that would have otherwise been trashed, good enough for 1,411 meals to those in need.

The Get Food Smart program has been growing steadily and rapidly since it first began at four schools in 2021. It is now active in 63 schools across 17 districts, with the Recycling Project setting a goal of being in every elementary school in Rhode Island by 2030.

No commitment yet, but interest is there
Members of the committee expressed interest in the program, but also asked some logistical questions, such as how the janitorial staff might respond to the requirements asked of them for the program.

“They all are very nervous when we show up thinking we’re going to make my job harder,” said Heyman, adding that ultimately mostly all of them buy into the program when they see the reduction in trash they have to haul and the reduction in food waste. “They see all this good food going in the trash. And because most custodians live in our communities, they know that there are kids in that room who are not getting enough food to eat, so they actually like the fact that we’re not throwing all this good food away anymore.”

Committee member Jessica Beauchaine said that while she was in support of the program in theory, she was concerned that not all schools (specifically referring to Waddington Elementary) necessarily have the capacity to begin the program right now.

“At one of our schools, we barely have time for our students to eat,” she said. “They have 555 elementary students sharing a cafeteria…I know right now, the custodians in that building can barely clean the tables before the other students come in. That’s my only concern.”

Heyman and Renee Chicoine of the recycling project agreed to set up a site visit at LaPerche Elementary School in Smithfield to see how the program works. Chicoine, an East Providence resident, said in an email that she has heard from parents of two schools in the city that were actively interested in moving forward with the program.