Zero Waste Savings Add Up for District 97

At first glance, the lunchroom at Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary School looks like any other. Students chat about their days while forking down cafeteria-made pasta and salad.

But this is no ordinary lunchroom. With just a few changes in the past two years, it has become a leader of a pioneering program in Oak Park Elementary School District 97 to cut down on waste and ultimately save huge chunks of cash.

In the two years, the district has saved about $26,000, according to Seven Generations Ahead, an Oak Park-based nonprofit that has helped lead the  effort along with volunteer parents and state grant funding. Total savings might eventually reach more than $50,000 a year as the program grows.

That's inspired districts from as far as Vermont and Oregon to call in to inquire about Oak Park's recent success.

The cost-saving process involves a slightly different approach to lunch. Every student in the Holmes lunchroom now eats on a reusable plastic tray rather than the disposable Styrofoam ones previously used.

When they are finished eating, students sort their waste into various colored bins for recycling or composting, then drop off their trays and silverware to be washed.

Just outside the lunchroom this week, volunteer parents were also working on harvesting vegetables for a special event with local chefs. The garden is fertilized  with the compost made from the lunchroom waste.

While it's perhaps more work than dumping everything into the garbage, Principal Suzie Hackmiller said the students and staff have embraced the new lunchtime process. As an added bonus, the garden has brought the school community closer together, she said.

"They actually love it," Hackmiller said of her students. "Now it's like second nature. They just do it."

Holmes has also added student waste ambassadors to help lead and educate fellow schoolmates. Signs once posted to assist students to remember which bins to use have been removed. The students no longer have any trouble figuring it out on their own.

While popular now, the program started on somewhat of a whim at Holmes a few years ago, before anyone in the district had done anything like it.

Michelle Vanderlaan, president of the school's parent-teacher organization,  contacted Hackmiller to see if she would be interested in applying for an Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity grant to promote zero waste for the 2008-2009 school year. The idea came from Seven Generations Ahead.

Hackmiller said the request came up fast and she knew little about it. But she agreed it was worth a try. Soon after the application was forwarded, Hackmiller said she was surprised to see Holmes received a full $10,000 state grant to pay for lunchroom trays, flatware and an industrial dishwasher. 

Then Oak Park joined in by offering containers for recycling, as well as funding help from the Lumpkin Family Foundation and the Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation.

The funding also paid for a $12,000 composter at Holmes, making it the only school in Illinois to have one of this power or size, according to officials.

District 97 then used Seven Generations Ahead to start pushing zero waste to its other schools using the same state grants. In 2009-2010, Holmes was joined by Beye, Hatch, Lincoln, Longfellow, Mann and Whittier. Irving jumped in this year.

It's not all lunchroom savings, either.

Goals of reducing paper have had an impact–some District 97 schools have cut their paper use in half. Schools are now asked to use both sides of a sheet. Other measures include having janitors save pens and pencils found on the floor to be later redistributed to students in need.

Next up is adding hand dryers in the restrooms. Overall, 40 have been installed in the district this year to replace paper towel dispensers.

Jennifer Nelson, the waste initiative coordinator at Seven Generations Ahead, said there is a potential soon for $55,000 in annual savings for the district just through waste reduction efforts in the lunchrooms, classrooms and bathrooms. New ideas might inspire even more savings, she said.

District 97 School Board President Peter Traczyk said such news is bound to impress taxpayers.

"This is one of those things we can highlight as a very successful project when asking for a referendum," he said at a recent board meeting.

It seems the effort has also made a personal effect on the lives of Holmes students.

"It's really encouraged some of the same behaviors at home," said Hackmiller. "It's an awareness the kids are taking into the community."