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Citizens Climate Corps facilitates one of the first school composting programs
in Pennsylvania
Group applauds Quaker Valley School District sustainability efforts.
Sewickley, PA; April 14, 2010. In a bid to green its schools, reduce trash removal costs, and minimize waste, the Quaker Valley (QV) School District is set to begin a six-month trial to compost food waste and cardboard, making it one of the only school districts in Pennsylvania to engage in composting.
Members of the Citizens Climate Corps alerted the Quaker Valley School District to the benefits of composting and introduced the services of AgRecycle to the District. Food waste must be mixed with yard waste such as leaves and grass for proper composting, so the District decided that a commercial composter was preferable to conducting onsite composting at the schools. AgRecycle is the only certified hauler of food waste in the Pittsburgh region; the company currently composts food waste for area businesses and facilities, including PNC Park, Whole Foods, and the Pittsburgh Convention Center.
“A school district is a smart place to begin a composting program as it demonstrates to children how to be responsible citizens and good stewards of our natural and economic resources. Schools also produce considerable amounts of food waste, so composting will divert significant amounts of waste from our overburdened landfills,” said Andrew Conry-Murray, member of the CCC composting action team and parent of a QV student. “We applaud Quaker Valley for taking the lead for schools in Pennsylvania.” Conry-Murray initially proposed the idea of composting to the school district.
The district expects to reap numerous benefits from the composting program. Because composting has the potential to reduce 30 percent of the District’s waste, it is hoped that the program will be cost neutral. In addition, some of the rich soil created from the composting will be used in butterfly gardens and flowerbeds at the District's school buildings.
Composting also provides significant opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases. Every ton of food waste diverted from the landfill prevents the equivalent of six tons worth of carbon dioxide emissions. In 2005 the United States sent 25 million tons of food waste to landfills. Composting this mass would have the CO2 equivalent of removing 7.8 million passenger cars from the road. Composting also reduces the use of herbicides, fertilizers, and irrigation, while holding more carbon in the soil.
In addition to the QV School District, the CCC is currently in discussion with a local private school and several well-known Pittsburgh organizations to facilitate composting at their facilities.
The Citizens Climate Corps (CCC) is a citizen-led organization that seeks to find practical solutions to global warming through project-based campaigns and education in southwestern Pennsylvania. At the CCC launch meeting in September 2009, a group of citizens formed several action teams, one of which was the school composting team. For more information about the CCC, visit the website at www.citizensclimatecorps.org.
