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About 20 Piney Branch Elementary School students and their parents received the unanimous support of the Takoma Park City Council on Monday in their bid to replace polystyrene lunch trays with reusable trays and utensils.
The students, members of the school's Young Activists Club, took turns at the podium during the council's public comment period to ask for the city's support, saying the Styrofoam trays hurt the environment and can be unhealthy for students.
"It's not only bad for the kids in the lunchroom when they eat off them, it's bad for everybody because they hurt the environment," said Nadine Bloch, 8, who along with her peers gathered "hundreds" of signatures in a petition to ban Styrofoam trays and raised money for the school to purchase a dish washer.
Piney Branch Elementary School spends about $8,700 a year on Styrofoam trays, while the total cost of a rebuilt washing machine and a set of reusable trays would be about $7,000, according to the students, who brought in a 5-foot-tall stack of Styrofoam trays to illustrate the number of trays the school uses in a single day.
"And, of course, we have come up with a solution for not using Styrofoam trays," said 10-year-old Alexander Plungis, holding up a reusable plastic tray. "Basically, these could last a few years and they would cost less than a few weeks worth of Styrofoam trays."
The council supported a resolution commending the students' efforts and supporting the use of reusable lunch trays and utensils. The students will now present before the County Council and school board.
Councilwoman Colleen Clay (Ward 2) told the students that questions concerning hot water expenses and other hidden costs of using washable trays would likely arise in their meetings with county officials.
"You want to be ready for all the different questions that they're going to ask you," she said. "[Just] so you're prepared with that information so they don't catch you off guard."
City receives stimulus money for projects
The city received $230,000 in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus money last week, including $160,000 to renovate a stormwater system on Linden Avenue and $70,000 that will go toward a green roof for the community center, according to Mayor Bruce Williams.
"The final word came just last week, but we knew about it about two months ago," he said. "We're happy to share in some of the stimulus money, and we also got $190,000 additional for the [renovation of the council] auditorium."
Williams said the money will help to pass projects that the city could not afford. The Maryland Department of the Environment allocated more than $121.6 million from the recovery act to water projects like the city's stormwater project, according to an EPA news release.
"It's going to come through [the council] very quickly," Williams said.
