Each day we come across inspiring people and organizations doing their part to stem the stream of waste in our public school system. Getting Tools to City Schools is one of these exceptional organizations that is trying to not only make our schools more sustainable, but also ensure that all students in New York City’s public schools have the tools they need to succeed.
Founded and directed by Dennis Kitchen, GTCS sells eco-friendly 3-ring binders as a way to fund its charitable mission of providing free, basic school supplies to students in New York City’s low-income public schools. Over half of the 1.1 million children enrolled in our city’s public schools can’t afford lunch, much less basic school supplies. In fact, New York City teachers spend anywhere from $500-$2000 of their own money each year to buy basic supplies for their students. So Dennis decided to start a charitable organization that would give these students the necessary supplies they need to perform well in school: a brand new three-ring binder, lined paper, pencil, pens, pocket divider folders and a pencil pouch.
As a way to fund the needed school supplies, Getting Tools to City Schools started selling eco-friendly 3-ring binders. The binders are made of 100% recycled paperboard, which is FDA approved and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified. In addition, the binders are reusable, which makes them economical. The binder features an ingenious removable 3-ring binder mechanism. All you have to do is dis-attach the rings, recycle the tattered and doodled-upon binder cover, and attach a new cover ready for artistic expression. No more wasteful vinyl binders filling up our landfills. In case you didn’t know, 40 million vinyl binders are sold in the U.S. each year, accounting for 35 million pounds of landfill. Each year there are 8,000 landfill fires, and the PVC burning in these fires may now be the single largest source of dioxin releases in the environment.
Getting Tools to City Schools, which is an approved vendor of the NYC Department of Education, has already received orders from 3 public schools who are outfitting their entire schools (students, staff & administration) with GTCS’ recyclable, reusable binders for the fall. Volume discounts are offered on orders of 50 or more to schools, parent’s groups, businesses, and organizations. All New York City public schools (grades K-12), whose student body is receiving more than 90% of Title 1 Funding (The Federal Free Lunch in Schools Program) are eligible for GTCS’ services. With every reusable, recyclable binder purchased at full price, Getting Tools to City Schools will give a binder to a student at a low-income public school. Be part of the solution: help our city’s children perform well at school by purchasing these recyclable binders that won’t add to our landfills.
(If you want to ensure delivery of your binders before the start of the school year, get your orders in before August 1, 2010.)
Contact:
info@gettingtoolstocityschools.org
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The Green Cup Challenge (GCC) is a national inter-school energy-conservation competition designed to reduce schools’ electricity use. 161 schools competed nationally in this year’s GCC and the winner was PS 166, a public elementary school on New York’s Upper West Side. In just 4 weeks (from January 15 – February 12 at peak winter energy use), PS 166 reduced its energy consumption by 17.75%. Ozgem Omektekin, the Department of Education’s Director of Sustainability says, “The school saved $1,845 on its electricity bill (15,380 kilowatt hours) and prevented 20,609 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) from being released into the environment.” A carbon calculator was used by Katy Perry, the GCC’s Program Director, to assess PS 166’s impact, and she found that PS 166’s energy saving was equal to taking 2 cars off the road for one year, planting 10 trees or replacing 374 incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents. And the school accomplished all this is just 4 weeks!
What extreme measures did PS 166 take to win? As it turns out, none. They posted signs reminding everyone to turn off unnecessary lights, to set thermostats to 68 degrees Fahrenheit, to power down computers, and to close windows and doors. Custodial staff turned off heat and boilers at night. Although no extreme measures were taken, a little vigilance and visual incentives were required. A Green Team comprised of parents, science teachers, and 5th grade “Climate Captains” walked through the school every Wednesday to see how people were doing. Parents and teachers received weekly communiqués about the school’s progress. And a large 3-D “Powerometer” was displayed in the school lobby to show whether meter readings were going up or down.
And by turning off lights, powering down computers, setting thermostats to a comfortable 68 degrees, PS 166 was able to reduce its energy consumption by nearly 18%. And, perhaps more importantly, the kids learned about the impact their behavior has on the environment. Emily Fano, Co-Chair of PS 166’s Green Committee and coordinator of the school’s GCC, said she received numerous emails from fellow parents who said their children were now turning off lights at home. Imagine if the 1,600 public schools in New York City took the Green Cup Challenge and reduced their energy consumption by nearly 20%. Think of the numbers of trees we would be planting or cars we would be removing from the road.
We hope educators and parents will be inspired by PS 166’s example and take the simple steps listed above to reduce their energy consumption. But relying on people’s altruism is not quite the same as instituting a policy that will guarantee success. We discovered that The Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) pays the utility bills for the New York City public schools. We’d like to propose a policy whereby the money a school saves on its electric bills is given to the school. Such a policy would not only give schools a huge incentive to reduce their energy consumption, it would also give our city schools money they need at a time of severe budget cuts. Opportunities to raise money for our schools that do not cost our government anything which also help to fight global warming are few and far between. The Mayor should seize this idea and make it happen.
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Although Debby Lee Cohen asked her children every day what they ate for lunch, it never occurred to her to ask them what their school lunch was served on, and so, like most New York City parents, she remained blissfully ignorant. A trip last spring to the Climate Change exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, however, changed all that. At the exhibit her seven-year old daughter stood staring at a diorama of a life-size polar bear standing on a melted island covered with trash. Finally, her daughter turned around and announced that she would no longer buy school lunch in order “to save the polar bears.” And that’s how Debby Lee Cohen discovered that in New York City school lunches are served on Styrofoam trays.
Read our interview with Debby Lee, a teacher at Parsons The New School for Design, to find out the health and environmental hazards of using Styrofoam and what you can do, as a parent or educator, to get rid of the Styrofoam trays at your school.
Why are you so determined to get rid of the Styrofoam trays in our schools?
Tell Your Children NOT to Scrape Their Trays With Their Sporks!
Styrofoam (polystyrene) trays are the worst kept secret in NYC schools. NYC schools use 850,000 trays per day, which amounts to 153 million trays a year!! They are terrible for our children’s health and for the environment. Some children eat 3 meals a day directly off of these trays, which are made up of the chemicals benzene and styrene. Styrene, a possible carcinogen, leaches into hot foods and has been linked to central nervous system disorders such as headaches, fatigue, depression, and hearing loss. NY State passed legislation banning toxic cleaning products in all schools. Parents should demand toxic-free school lunches as well. We should not be taking risks with our children’s health.
If that’s not bad enough, polystyrene is a petroleum-based product which stays around for centuries, if not longer, taking up an enormous amount of landfill space. Solid waste adds a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
Why then are we still using Styrofoam?
Styrofoam is cheap, extremely lightweight, and insulates well. In fact, the price per tray just came down from 4 cents to 3 cents! Most of the available alternatives, such as biodegradable sugar-cane trays, cost much more. And although prices of alternative disposables are slowly coming down due to increased demand, the prices are not coming down fast enough to make the change that is needed.
How did you make the transition from an informed, angry Mom to an activist?
A few weeks after I discovered our children were eating off of Styrofoam trays, I had the opportunity with my Parsons 3D students to create am installation out of used Styrofoam trays. I was in school cafeterias pulling out hundreds of dirty trays from the trash and realized that a significant number were barely used. My initial thought was why don’t we have a “don’t need, don’t take policy” in place. This would not only reduce the number of trays thrown out but would save the city money. For example, if a student only buys a sandwich and a drink, they don’t really need a tray.
I started making phone calls everyday, looking for some organization that was dealing with the tray issue. Although I found some amazing individuals, like parent Helen Greenberg, who were working hard to make change within their own school, there was no group working on trays as a citywide issue. I wondered if parents of children receiving free and subsidized school lunch had a clue about the harmful effects of Styrofoam trays.
I was already in discussion with another parent and web designer, Robin Perl, about creating a website on climate change. We saw the tray issue as a solvable problem. Robin designed an effective site along with quotes from doctors at Mt Sinai and NRDC, which gave us credibility. We sent out emails and petitions to everyone we knew and our organization, Styrofoam Out of Schools (SOS) was formed.
You’ve succeeded in bringing TRAYLESS TUESDAY to our schools? Can you describe what TRAYLESS TUESDAY is and how you made it happen?
Robin Perl and I, along with fellow Parsons teacher and product designer, Jessica Corr, and parent Helen Greenberg, asked for a meeting with Eric Goldstein and other SchoolFood directors. We agreed in the meeting to find ways of reducing tray use with Jessica Parson’s class working in a school cafeteria. Out of this class, the idea of TRAYLESS TUESDAY, a trend that was already taking place on college campuses, was born and proposed to the Department of Education. They agreed to try it out and as of March 2010 all NYC schools participate in TRAYLESS TUESDAY, which reduces the use of Styrofoam trays by 20%, or 850,00 trays per week.
Paper Boats Stacked for Recycling Bin
Right now Parsons students are designing posters to support TRAYLESS TUESDAY and to improve cafeteria recycling. Unfortunately, these posters will not arrive in schools until the fall. In the meantime, we need parents and administrators to explain to staff and students what TRAYLESS TUESDAY is all about and why it’s such an important movement for our schools.
How are you working to get rid of Styrofoam trays the other four days of the week?
The first step is to use recyclable paper products on pizza days and all other days and meals that do not have a saucy component. SchoolFood is already purchasing paper boats (what looks like a paper hot dog tray but larger), which they will substitute for the Styrofoam trays for all breakfast meals and soon for pizza days as well. SchoolFood director, Stephen O’Brien, is dedicated to making this change happen.
With the support of SchoolFood, our legislators, and the Mayor’s office, we need to begin piloting alternative trays and systems in order to find solutions which do not threaten our children’s health while also significantly reducing our carbon emissions. This will take true collaboration involving many parties. We need to bring DSNY, manufacturers, cafeteria and custodial unions, the recycling mill managers, the Department of Heath, legislators and the DOE together to formulate a viable long-term plan.
It is also time to make the elimination of Styrofoam a national movement. By increasing demand for alternative products, we can bring the price down on a national level. NYC should partner with other large east coast cities and counties to increase buying power.
Schools can substitute their Styrofoam trays for biodegradable sugar-cane trays or reusable, washable trays if they have a dishwasher. How many schools are no longer using Styrofoam trays? What should a parent do if they want to get rid of the Styrofoam trays at their school?
I would first encourage parents to attend their school’s Wellness Committee meeting and ask that the paper boats be used instead of Styrofoam whenever possible. If their school does not have a Wellness Committee, go to NYC Green Schools and find out how to get one started.
Reusable trays would be great. Currently, however, there are only 30 public schools in the city that still have dishwashers and some schools do not even have the plumbing to support a dishwasher.
Twelve schools are presently self-funding the extra cost to purchase biodegradable sugar-cane trays. I strongly encourage schools that can raise the money to make the change to sugar-cane trays in order to keep their children from eating off of Styrofoam. Presently, however, there is no free composting facility or pick-up available (something we should all be advocating for), so these trays go directly into sealed landfills where they do not biodegrade for a very long time.
The steps a parent can take to get rid of Styrofoam in their school can be found on our website page, TAKE ACTION.
Is there anything else you’d like people to know?
SOS is planning on setting up pilots for a variety of alternative possibilities, including composting for all the schools that use the sugar-cane trays, providing energy-efficient or solar-powered dishwashers for reusable trays, employing personal reusable trays and cutlery, and piloting new disposable prototypes as well as system changes that suit the needs of NYC and other large urban school districts. We need volunteers, partnerships with universities and manufacturers, and funding to get these initiatives going asap! For anyone interested in joining us, we can be contacted at info@sosnyc.org
As parents and educators, we have the responsibility to teach our children to be responsible citizens (which includes reducing waste) and to provide them with school facilities and services that they will not be paying for as adults! NYC has an enormous amount of work to do in terms of reducing our waste. We should teach and empower our children by setting the best example in our schools.
Styrofoam Trays
On Saturday NYC Green Schools took part in The Green Schools Alliance 2010 “Visioning the Future” Conference held at Martin Luther King High School. 
Schools, non-profits, and businesses all came out to demonstrate their wares and share what they were doing to make our schools more green from vertical gardens to trayless Tuesdays to reducing electronic waste and more. We were there to promote our Meatless Monday campaign, because, as we state below, animal production for food consumption contributes more to global warming than all forms of transportation combined. Here’s a glimpse at what other people are doing to make our schools more sustainable.
The Green Gremlins are spreading the word about reducing energy waste.
“Seeds in the Middle” inspires parents and students to green their environment and take control of their health.
Teachers College of Columbia University has developed a science and nutrition program for grades 4-8.
Green Living Technologies is bringing gardens into the classrooms with vertical agriculture.
SOSnyc.org is dedicated to eliminating Styrofoam trays from our schools.