The Kendall National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) is spearheading a new composting program in 2021. Partnering with a local business, Impact Earth, composting procedures will be incorporated into the school’s lunchtime routine.
Composting with Impact Earth is different from composting in your backyard. Impact Earth utilizes a system very similar to a weekly garbage collection service to pick up compost from local schools, businesses, and homes. They bring that material to their enclosed composting facilities. This company monitors and turns the compost material daily, allowing them to accept a wider variety of food waste than your backyard compost bin. Kendall students are able to put any type of food in the composting buckets, from fruits and vegetables to sandwich crusts and chicken nuggets. Impact Earth is also able to compost napkins and other paper products soiled by food.
Working with Impact Earth, NJHS students participated in a waste assessment that produced eye-opening results. They discovered that Kendall produces 230 pounds of total waste in a day; more importantly, about 49 percent of the waste produced could be diverted into composting or recycling. This number highlights the impact that NJHS members will be able to make on a daily basis.
The goal of this program is to help Kendall have a better impact on the community. The members of NJHS are very excited about this opportunity for leadership in the school as well as the impact it will have on the community’s trash production. Each day during both lunch periods, NJHS members will travel between lunch locations in the school with a green bucket, educating students about how to separate their trash, what is compostable and what is not, and how to make this part of their regular routine. Impact Earth will be picking up the school’s compost waste once a week and giving back rich compost dirt twice a year.
Emma Quintern, a two-year member of the NJHS, commented, “This program is a leadership opportunity for NJHS members because my peers and I will spark change amongst the other schools in Orleans County, and hopefully, become a pioneer for other small schools in other counties and states. Our composting program should reduce the amount of waste that goes into landfills.”
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