Tips for Reducing Waste in Your School

Teachers and students can practice waste reduction in the classroom by doing the following:

Reduce

• Use an overhead projector, power point presentation, or blackboard to reduce the amount of printed information.
• Make double sided copies whenever possible.
• Encourage parents and students to pack a Waste-Free lunch for field trips and in school. www.wastefreelunches.org
• Use paper towels only as needed, or better yet, replace them with sponges.

Reuse

• Encourage students to write on both sides of a piece of paper before recycling it.
• Designate a Scrap Material box in the classroom for paper, fabric, and other objects that can be reused.
• Ask students to bring 3 ring binders to class instead of spiral notebooks. Binders can be reused.
• At the end of the school year, collect unwanted school supplies such as pencils and notebooks that can be used during the next school year.
• Encourage students to collect supplies for reuse art projects such as egg cartons, metal canisters, magazines, milk cartons, paper grocery bags, and plastic lids.

Recycle

• Establish a recycling bin in your classroom, or a recycling program for the school.
• Have students separate materials for recycling.
• Ask students to remove spiral bindings from notebooks before recycling them.
• Plan a lesson about paper recycling and make recycled paper.
• Place recycling and garbage bins in the teacher's lunchroom to collect materials to be recycled.
• Visit the Recycling and Solid Waste Center to learn more about how recycled materials are sorted and processed before remanufacturing.
• Collect and sell classroom recyclables as part of a school-wide recycling contest that can be donated to a local charity or used for classroom supplies, pizza party, etc.

Rebuy

• Purchase items for the classroom, such as filler paper, binders, and post-it notes, that have recycled content.
• Buy goods for the classroom that are refillable, reusable, and durable.
• Start a campaign to encourage the school to adopt a green purchasing policy.
• Learn more about green purchasing by visiting the Finger Lakes Buy Green website.

Compost

• Start composting food waste in the classroom. This can be done inside or outside. Ask students to bring in vegetable scraps from school lunches.
• When installing a school garden, choose plants appropriate for the local conditions and reduce the generation of green waste, use of water, fertilizers, and pesticides.
• Contact the Compost Education Program for help or to schedule a classroom composting presentation by calling the Rotline at Tompkins County Cooperative Extension at 272-2292 x 124 or by sending an email to tompkins@cornell.edu.