Sunday, November 21, 2010
Sonya Elder's Response
Sonya Elder responded really quickly and I was really happy with the information she gave me. First, she let me know that she would be available to meet very often at BHS around lunch time. She gave me a quick overview of what sustainable dining practices were being implemented in the cafeteria. A big part of this was a transition from styrofoam plates to more ecofriendly plates. And this was very recent as of the week I received this email. I had seen styrofoam plates in the cafeteria not two days prior to this. But shortly after they disappeared. Instead, they offer customers a reusable plates in the hot line and at the salad bar. Disposable plates are still available, but they've been switched from styrofoam to a biodegradable material. She said that they would soon be switching to a paper soup bowl instead of a styrofoam one. She also emphasized locally purchased foods and beverages. The school purchases produce every week directly from Lanni Orchards, which she described as a family farm in Lunenburg, MA. This time of year they get apples, carrots, squash. In addition the school buys some apple cider from "Joe Czajkowski's Farm" in Hadley, MA. The B.Good Burgers that are served at the cafeteria every Tuesday are made from all-natural locally-sourced beef. The beef comes from Pineland Farms Natural Meats, a collaborative of 250 family farms in New England. Also, B.Good's tomatoes are grown on their very own rooftop garden. Fair-trade organic coffee is now served in the hot beverage section of the cafeteria. Apparently, the hotline usually features a meatless option every Monday -- "Meatless Mondays." In addition, the salad bar has expanded to offer a greater variety of "fresh vegetables and offerings, such as tofu and garbanzo bean salad." Fresh fruit cups and yogurt parfaits (so good!) are always available in the "grab-and-go" section of the cafeteria. And vegetarian options are always available at the deli where they assemble your choice of sandwich. There is always vegetarian sushi as well. Vegetarian/Vegan options take much less energy to produce than animal products (this includes dairy products) because animals take much more energy to grow than plants.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Cafeteria & Library Statistics
Last week, while in the cafeteria, I observed the dining practices of students in the school cafeteria. I really wanted to know how they felt about recycling and what their real everyday interaction with the Green Initiative looked like. Were they regular recyclers, did they take out reusable plates, did they return them. I focused specifically on waste management in the cafeteria: what students (and teachers) did with their trash. On Tuesday 2nd Lunch, Thursday 1st Lunch, and Friday 2nd Lunch I counted how many plastic bottles were put into the recycling and how many were put in the trash. The recycling bin and the trash were only 15 feet apart.
Tuesday: 31/56 milk bottles were recycled
Thursday: 18/33 milk bottles were recycled
Friday: 26/47 milk bottles were recycled
Consistently, only a little less than half of the milk bottles I counted were thrown into a trash can only 15 feet away from the recycling. Although this a huge improvement from 100% of milk bottles being thrown out, we're still not quite there and BHS is not as green as they like to make themselves seem. I always thought that the insane amounts of "raising awareness" at Brookline High School about global warming and such was unwarranted, but clearly a lot of people are still not totally conscious of the way the choices they and their peers make affects the total carbon output of the school.
Next I went to the Library, curious about how people saved and recycled paper. I observed that there were without a doubt more recycling bins than trashcans and this helped improve paper recycling. In a similar experiment to the one I did in the cafeteria, I saw that flat paper was ALWAYS recycled. I didn't see a single person put flat paper into a trash can. The paper that was thrown into a trash can, which I observed only three times, had already been crumpled up into a ball which I found very interesting.
Tuesday: 31/56 milk bottles were recycled
Thursday: 18/33 milk bottles were recycled
Friday: 26/47 milk bottles were recycled
Consistently, only a little less than half of the milk bottles I counted were thrown into a trash can only 15 feet away from the recycling. Although this a huge improvement from 100% of milk bottles being thrown out, we're still not quite there and BHS is not as green as they like to make themselves seem. I always thought that the insane amounts of "raising awareness" at Brookline High School about global warming and such was unwarranted, but clearly a lot of people are still not totally conscious of the way the choices they and their peers make affects the total carbon output of the school.
Next I went to the Library, curious about how people saved and recycled paper. I observed that there were without a doubt more recycling bins than trashcans and this helped improve paper recycling. In a similar experiment to the one I did in the cafeteria, I saw that flat paper was ALWAYS recycled. I didn't see a single person put flat paper into a trash can. The paper that was thrown into a trash can, which I observed only three times, had already been crumpled up into a ball which I found very interesting.
Email to Sonya Elder
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Hi Ms. Elder,
I'm doing my Public Speaking research paper on sustainable cafeteria practices at BHS. I was just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about it. Particularly if you could tell me about the styrofoam vs washable plate situation.
Thanks,
Thomas L-V
I'm doing my Public Speaking research paper on sustainable cafeteria practices at BHS. I was just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about it. Particularly if you could tell me about the styrofoam vs washable plate situation.
Thanks,
Thomas L-V
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Narrowing my Topic
So I've decided to narrow my topic down to the dining and waste management practices in the cafeteria. I'm going to do research into the new practices that have been implemented including the real plates vs. the styrofoam plates that the "healthy food" is served on, the disappearance of the plastic baskets they used to use, and the recycling practices in the cafeteria. I'll try to get into contact with Sonya Elder and do some investigation of my own. I'd be particularly interested in seeing how many people actually recycle and what motivations are hidden behind these choices. I would also be interested in seeing how effective the recycling process actually is and what they can do to improve it.
Also, how do our dining practices compare to other schools in the area? Or around the world even? I'm sure there are schools in Sweden that cook by using solar power or something of that nature. We will most definitely not go that extreme, but what are other schools doing to go green? Also what is the cost of all this? In dollars? How much money needs to be spent or raised to make these changes to the system? Because new materials need to be purchased, some people may have to work more so wages may have to increase. Where does this fit into the school budget? And how do other schools deal with that? This could really develop into an interesting project. And what about the actual structure of the cafeteria itself? Is there something about how the food lines move that can take up more or less energy? Is it well insulated enough so that too much heating does not have to be used to keep such a wide space warm. There are a lot of great questions to answer here.
Also, how do our dining practices compare to other schools in the area? Or around the world even? I'm sure there are schools in Sweden that cook by using solar power or something of that nature. We will most definitely not go that extreme, but what are other schools doing to go green? Also what is the cost of all this? In dollars? How much money needs to be spent or raised to make these changes to the system? Because new materials need to be purchased, some people may have to work more so wages may have to increase. Where does this fit into the school budget? And how do other schools deal with that? This could really develop into an interesting project. And what about the actual structure of the cafeteria itself? Is there something about how the food lines move that can take up more or less energy? Is it well insulated enough so that too much heating does not have to be used to keep such a wide space warm. There are a lot of great questions to answer here.
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