DETROIT – Some students in Detroit are making it their mission to reduce the carbon footprint on their school’s campus.
A group of fourth and fifth graders at Gesu Catholic School said they are actively involved in a program that they say has helped them reduce waste through sorting and composting leftover food and beverages.
“We have reduced our food waste 90%,” said Kamil Jenkins, a fifth-grade student. “We send our food waste to the farm to feed the animals. We put the drinks down the drain, and it comes out as clean fresh water to drink. We are doing all of this to help the community.”
Other conservation efforts include eliminating the use of plastic utensils. Instead, students say they are using metal utensils during lunch service.
“We try our best to make the world a better place, so less sea animals die, and more sea life lives,” said a student named Riley.
The efforts to go green have helped the campus in other ways. Students said they used to collect 12 to 15 bags of trash from the cafeteria, daily, two years ago. Since they’ve transferred from Styrofoam trays to metal trays, the amount of waste being collected has significantly decreased.
“Since we started composting, we reduced the bags of trash from 15 bags to 1-2 bags,” explained Gaelyn, age 10.
The students at Gesu Catholic School have the full support of their teachers, faculty, and staff.
”We used to have our cleanup crew just dragging bag after bag out of the lunchroom to the dumpster,” Principal DeLois Cooke Spryszak explained. “But now, it’s one or two bags, at most, every day. That is a significant savings in manpower, in purchasing of garbage bags, and just overall waste that our school is producing.”
The students said they hope their small actions on campus may help inspire others to reduce waste in their homes, schools, and workplaces.
“We want to keep the world healthy,” said Aiden Wells, age 10.