NYC’s public school community consists of 1.1 million students, 75,000 teachers, and thousands of additional staff, providing an excellent opportunity for implementing serious solid waste reduction procedure and education. Teaching new habits at school is valuable knowledge that can be taken home.

Over the past 20 years, our schools have thrown away 3 BILLION STYROFOAM (polystyrene) LUNCH TRAYS. Polystyrene trays are used because they are cheap. Nothing is truly thrown “away” and when accounting for the entire life cycle of polystyrene, these trays are anything but cheap! Our children eat hot food directly off of these trays, which are composed of the chemicals benzene and styrene. After a mere 20 minutes of use, used trays are exported to landfills out of state, a city sanitation expenditure that continues to rise.

While I applaud PlaNYC and the Department of Education on all their great energy saving initiatives, it is high time for this city to seriously invest in school waste reduction initiatives and to procure all city contracted products with consideration to product Life Cycle Analysis. We should be “designing” our school garbage and investing in closed loop systems which generate our city income, rather than costing us dearly.

By 2030, Mayor Bloomberg’s target year for 30% carbon emissions reduction, our school children will be adults, many with children of their own. Their lifelong habits regarding recycling and waste are being formed by what we teach them right now!

Debby Lee Cohen
Director, Styrofoam Out of Schools (SOSnyc.org)/Cafeteria Culture