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.
