{"id":6335,"date":"2016-12-17T11:12:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-17T16:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/?p=6335"},"modified":"2021-11-19T13:03:39","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T18:03:39","slug":"hillside-school-composting-pilot-program-up-and-running","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/hillside-school-composting-pilot-program-up-and-running\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillside School Composting Pilot Program Up and Running"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Michael<\/a>
Michael Kascak, Walter Godoy, and an employee of the Natick RTS with five of the original Radioactive Hamburgers, L to R Daniel King, Zachary Brown, Dilin Meloni, Noah Dooley, and Adam Kuechler, the first week that Natick picked up food waste for Hillside.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Melanie Morgon<\/i><\/p>\n

Recycling and composting is great, but is it possible to get a first grader to separate lunchtime waste into four different categories? The answer at Needham’s Hillside School is a resounding “Yes”!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Last April, <\/span>Hillside school students worked with their principal and lead custodian<\/span><\/span><\/a> to set up a trash sorting system for the K-5 school. At Hillside school, lunchtime waste is sorted by students into four different types, continuing the program begun by last year\u2019s 5th grade Lego League team, the Radioactive Hamburgers.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Although last year\u2019s fifth graders are now at High Rock School, before they left Hillside, they put a plan in place to keep food waste recycling happening. They set up a club called the Radioactive Hamburgers Club, inducting last year\u2019s fourth graders, teaching them how to organize and monitor, making sure the work continues. Parent Seema Meloni noted that lead custodian Walter Godoy has been proactive and smart in thinking about how to make the program sustainable. \u00a0To help keep the students engaged, he has planned a new award for the grade that does the best job with trash sorting: the Golden Tray award.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This fall, it\u2019s apparent that students at Hillside have taken trash separation in stride–they understand it as part of their lunch culture. \u00a0The new Radioactive Hamburgers work with the school and students at different lunches to make sure their classmates understand how to separate and why, and they help monitor daily separating. Needham\u2019s Superintendent of Solid Waste and Recycling Operations Greg Smith specifically asked the pilot program to ensure the food waste contains nothing more than trace amounts of meat or seafood, and no bones or dairy. \u00a0He checked in periodically, and when he was satisfied the sorting was consistent, he arranged for pickups to begin.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The details worked out for the Hillside pickup were simple: the town of Natick wanted to run a two-year residential composting pilot program, with 500 households participating. However, the town had nowhere to bring its food waste, so Natick contacted Needham. \u00a0Needham agreed to take <\/span>Natick\u2019s compost at no cost, if Natick would agree to pick up the Hillside school\u2019s food waste. In August, 2016, the two towns signed a Letter of Agreement for two years, and Natick began shipping twice a week to Needham. <\/span>The Hillside pickup program launched officially in Octob<\/a>er of this year, with trucks picking up at the school Tuesday and Thursday mornings.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For the time being, the program is still a pilot, but, as Smith noted, this is a pilot with room to grow and really take off. \u00a0Both Smith and Meloni said that they hope this program will expand to the other schools in town, perhaps even to thinking proactively about waste management for the new Hillside school.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Melanie Morgon Recycling and composting is great, but is it possible to get a first grader to separate lunchtime waste into four different categories? The answer at Needham’s Hillside School is a resounding “Yes”! Last April, Hillside school students<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":6336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[293,20],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-6335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-waste-tzw","category-schools","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}