[USCC] school food scrap composting

[Tamara Thomas]

Hi Karin,
	I'm working with several schools in King County who collect and
compost their own food waste.  There is always some level of contamination
to deal with, but I have not found any of these schools that have
unacceptable levels.  I think part of this is due to the on-site activity.
The kids are involved at some level with the composting so the connection is
made between what goes into the food collection and where that food goes.  I
haven't done a specific study of it, but my guess would be that the more
involved the kids are in the composting, the less contamination you would
find.  Crestwood Elementary is doing a fantastic job at this, as are Camp
Sealth, and Waskowitz OEC.  If you would like more information about these
programs feel free to contact me.

tami

Tamara Thomas, P.E.
Terre-SourceLLC
Helping Compost Happen!
360-336-3536 Office
360-336-3530 FAX
425-844-6068 Field
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Karin Grobe [mailto:kgrobe at pacbell.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 5:40 PM
To: 'Compost Discussion List'
Subject: [USCC] school food scrap composting

Elementary schools participate in the local food scrap 
composting program. They accept food scraps from the lunch period and are 
finding unacceptable levels of packaging in the collection containers, 
things such as plastic wrapping for fresh vegetables, straws, cracker 
wrappers, plastic utensils, etc. Training kindergardeners to fifth graders
to separate out these items is a challenge, as is convincing school kitchen
managers and administrators not to provide them in the first place. Can
anyone provide an example of a school food scrap composting program that has

figured out how to deal with/eliminate these and other such 
contaminants?