BY MICHELLE MILLER
Staff Writer

Second graders at Cooperstown Central School have indulged in a hefty project — monitoring food waste in the cafeteria.

According to second-grade teacher David Bertram, students are now only in the beginning stages of this adventure. The idea came about when trying to find some activities to go along with this year’s elementary theme, Capture the Adventure, said Bertram.

``I thought it would be helpful for the school for a lot of different reasons,’’ he said.

The students have begun collecting and weighing the waste and are keeping tabs on their findings. Each day, the students go to the cafeteria to get a record of the weight of the wasted food to compare with what was served that day and how many student meals were sold. So far, the students have charted five day’s worth of data.

For example, pizza was served to 251 students on Friday and there was 145 pounds of waste thrown out. This averages out to .57 pounds of food waste per pupil that day.

Tuesday was turkey day, which was a big meal that resulted in even more waste, according to Bertram. Data showed 233 students were served and 180 pounds of food was thrown in the garbage. This averages out to be .77 pounds of wasted food per pupil.

The study shows that there has been 75 to 180 pounds of food thrown out on a daily basis, which amounted to just over 600 pounds of waste in a week’s time.

That is a lot of food, said Bertram. It is very interesting to see the numbers, it is amazing, added Bertram.

According to Bertram cutting down on waste is a harder task than might meet the eye because state mandates require that each student be served a certain amount of food whether they eat it all or not. A lot of food items get nibbled on or not touched at all and then tossed, he said. Bertram said the cafeteria does a fantastic job with the resources available to them.

``The food waste is coming from the children not finishing their meals,’’ he said. ``Our goal is going to be to reduce the amount of wastes that the students are creating by making them aware of the wastes being created. Then we will look for alternative ways to use these wastes.’’

Bertram said he used to have pigs he could bring the food to, but the state does not allow that anymore either.

For now, food is taken away to the dump along with the regular garbage, but we would like to find a better solution, said Bertram.

According to Bertram, a few people were asked to estimate how much waste there would be and most did not think there would be nearly as much as there actually is. ``It would be fantastic to be able to do something good with the waste,’’ said Bertram.

Bertram said he and the students have begun looking at possible ways to reduce waste. For example he said he would like to look into composting the waste and possibly making worm bins.

Kid Garden could possibly benefit from the compost if it is within our capabilities and there are many fishermen in the area that might be interesting in purchasing worms if we could make that work, said Bertram.

As a class students have looked at what others are doing with their waste, according to Bertram. For example, he said he and the students did research to see what colleges across the country do with their excess food.

We found out that colleges across the country are tossing 4.5 million pounds of food per meal and some have found ways to make profits from selling compost made from the waste, said Bertram.

"It is amazing what can be done,’’ said Bertram. "Are we going to get that far? No. But we can start by educating the students and thinking of ideas of what we can possibly do.’’

Bertram said he hopes the project will help other teachers as well. He said data will be given to other classes to be used to teach percentages and other mathematical problems.

``It’s a good integration of mathematics and social studies and is an excellent civic experience for the boys and girls,’’ said Elementary Principal Teresa Gorman.