by Keith L. Martin and Molly Fellin Spence | Staff Writers
BOULDER, Colo. — When a group of parents learned that students at Niwot Elementary School in eastern Boulder County were using Styrofoam trays during school lunches, they sprung into action.
A letter-writing campaign to the school’s food service administrator resulted in the elimination of the non-recyclable material from Niwot, according to Principal Mike Keppler.
‘‘Parents are committed to this,” Keppler said.
A strong commitment from the Niwot community, school staff and students is necessary to make the school’s waste diversion goals a reality, Keppler told a group of Frederick County officials and residents who visited Boulder this week.
‘‘Custodians are a huge, huge part,” he said.
At lunch each day, custodians stand near the cafeteria’s waste station and help students figure out where to put their leftovers — in the recycling can, the compost bin or the container bound for a landfill.
Niwot Elementary is fairly unique in that it is one of 17 ‘‘Green Star Schools,” as certified by Eco-Cycle, a nonprofit organization that works for Boulder to handle its recycling programs and reduce trash.
Three years ago, Eco-Cycle created the Green Star Schools project, which ramps up recycling efforts at certified schools, adding composting, and requiring more education, oversight and management.
Parents take pride in the fact that Niwot Elementary is Green Star certified, Keppler said, and as a result are willing to go the extra mile to help the school succeed. Green Star schools send 60 percent less waste to the landfill, on average, according to Nancy Dudek, Eco-Cycle’s Green Star Schools coordinator.
Before Frederick County Public Schools could think about instituting a similar system to Boulder, it must ramp up its recycling efforts.
Charlie Dalphon, the system’s energy and recycling coordinator, said that will begin this fall, with a goal of schools recycling 50 percent of their waste. The school system does not know how much it recycles now, but is working on a way to determine the amount this summer.
‘‘We view [recycling] as very, very important, especially with the problems at the county’s solid waste facility,” Dalphon said. ‘‘We need to work with them to recycle the best that we can.”
Each Frederick County public school’s administrative office has a Dumpster for paper and cardboard that custodians collect from recycling bins. At an annual cost of $68,000, the school system contracts with BFI Waste for pickup and transport to Hagerstown for processing.
The school system plans to examine that contract and other operations to measure waste at individual schools and find a way to transport the increased recycling they hope to generate.
Since 1987, Eco-Cycle has coordinated the Recycling and Environmental Education Program at Boulder County schools, reaching 53,000 students and staff in 80 schools. More than 800 tons of materials — such as cardboard, paper, plastic and aluminum — are recycled on an annual basis.
Program director Cyndra Deitz said the initiative’s success is due to its longevity and diverse funding — city and county funds are supplemented with grants to fund the program’s $150,000 annual price tag.
Frederick County Commissioner David P. Gray (R) was astounded upon hearing Boulder County’s statistics Tuesday afternoon.
He and Commissioner Kai J. Hagen (D) vowed to take the information about Eco-Cycle’s school projects to Frederick County’s Board of Education and to Ray Barnes, the school system’s facilities director, for further examination.
Dalphon said he knows the two biggest issues to overcome in getting Frederick County schools to 50 percent recycling are the things that make the Boulder programs a success, ‘‘behavioral changes and funding,” he said.
‘‘It’s all a function of how much money you want to spend ... and the level of education to expand [recycling] in each school,” he said. ‘‘We are shooting to be more like Montgomery County with around 50 percent recycling.”
