Waste watchers

Making New York City waste free with a million student helpers

September 15, 2017 | by JENNY PEEK

Photo by Saskia Kahn, courtesy of Teach for America

A group of fifth graders stand in a line beside a conveyor belt at the Sims Municipal Recycling Facility in Brooklyn, New York. They watch intently as heaping piles of recyclable materials – brought in by trucks and barges – trudge by and are sorted by giant magnets and optical machines.

After seven short minutes, a small block of material comes out the other end of the belt – ready to be sold to companies that use recycled plastic in their products.

This student field trip, put on by the New York City Department of Education Office of Sustainability’s Zero Waste Schools program, is just one component of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s citywide goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2030.

“What making New York City a zero-waste city means is that anything that can be diverted will be diverted,” says Nelson Institute alumna Joy Rifkin, who coordinates the city’s Zero Waste Schools program. “There are a ton of different things happening citywide to reach this goal, and we’re just one part of that big pie.”

Though it’s only one piece of an overarching movement to minimize waste in the city, the Zero Waste Schools program carries a hefty footprint. The New York City Department of Education is the largest school district in the United States. It serves more than a million students in more than 1,800 schools.

For Rifkin, who earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and biology in 2011, launching the citywide waste-reduction program in schools was an obvious choice toward the larger mission. Approaching sustainability in a holistic way that centers on community engagement is something that seemed second nature after her time at the Nelson Institute.

“There was this idea at Nelson of we’re going to give you this global perspective of environmental studies and sustainability, and then we’re not just going to stop there – we’re going to start giving you opportunities to focus on things happening in the community,” says Rifkin. “It was invaluable because it gave me experience doing the things that I was learning about.”

With over a million meals served to students each day and innovative methods available to incorporate waste reduction into class curricula, Rifkin and her colleagues are gradually changing the way schools handle their trash.

The program began with 100 schools along two garbage truck routes – one in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan. Because the city was already equipped to collect organic material, such as food scraps, along these routes, it was well positioned to implement composting in participating schools. The program, which recently wrapped up its first year, aims to keep all of the schools’ recyclable and compostable materials out of landfills within five years.

And it’s not stopping there. Over time, the program may expand to every New York City school.

“As organics collection throughout the city expands, the program is set to expand as well,” says Rifkin. “This is the end of the first year, and there have already been tremendous diversion rates – we’re doing waste audits now and seeing awesome progress.”

While the Zero Waste Schools program has a clear benefit to the environment, the economic impact may be even more profound.

New York City is dense. More than 8 million people live within 305 square miles. Manhattan alone is home to more than 1.6 million people, all crammed into about 23 square miles. On top of that, the city’s only landfill – Fresh Kills on Staten Island – closed more than 16 years ago. With nowhere to put waste, the city is forced to ship it to other states at an astonishing cost.

“It costs $300 million per year in tax dollars, and we ship as far as South Carolina,” says Rifkin. “This isn’t just about saving our planet – there are so many ways to look at this economically and from an environmental justice perspective. We always ask our students, ‘How would you feel if some other state was shipping its trash into your backyard?’”

Building that awareness among students has been a driving force behind the project’s momentum.

“When kids are in the driver’s seat, things happen in creative ways,” Rifkin says. “The program really allows for student-driven change. They are the reason this program keeps going.”

NYC Kids pose after a Zero Waste Schools lesson taught by Joy Rifkin.

For example, together with students, school leaders have formed green teams, with names like Waste Watchers and The Sanitation Specialists. Students are also learning about waste reduction in the classroom. Grow-NYC, one of the Zero Waste Schools program’s local nonprofit partners, provides ways for teachers to incorporate lessons about waste into their curricula. Students have performed waste audits and measured diversion rates in math, and even written to their congressional representatives and mayor as part of social studies courses.

“People don’t think about their footprint when it comes to waste, but once that awareness is brought into a student’s mind, it is something they notice. It feels really good to be part of a team working to educate New York City’s students and stakeholders within the schools about waste,” says Rifkin.

Rifkin hopes other cities can look to the Zero Waste Schools program for inspiration. For those considering such an initiative, she stresses the importance of storytelling and making issues surrounding waste more public-facing.

“It’s really taking that story and putting it out there, so people can’t ignore the waste that they’re creating – sharing that information, sharing where recyclables go, how they’re processed, and then taking that into schools,” Rifkin advises. “Young people are the next generation, and from my experience, they really take the information, grow, and run with it.”