SOSnyc.org is a grassroots organization, working to find solutions to end the use of Styrofoam lunch trays in NYC! We believe that by bringing together relevant organizations, government agencies, students, teachers, parents, and concerned citizens, that we can find sustainable solutions.
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SOSnyc’s goal
SOSnyc.org is a grassroots organization, working to find solutions to end the use of Styrofoam lunch trays in NYC! We believe that by bringing together relevant organizations, government agencies, students, teachers, parents, and concerned citizens, that we can find sustainable and affordable solutions.
1 REDUCE polystyrene food tray use
2 REPLACE polystyrene food trays in all NYC schools with healthy and environmental sustainable alternatives.
3 Significantly REDUCE all waste in schools
SOSnyc was established in reaction to the fact that NYC Department o Education (DoE) throws out 850,000 polystyrene trays per day, totaling 153,000,000 trays per school year. Our mission is to alert New Yorkers to this serious environmental and health issue and to work with NYC DoE to find and implement solutions to drastically reduce waste in schools and minimize our children’s exposure to toxins.
Via sheer scale and purchasing power, DOE School Food has enormous potential to shift manufacturing and waste management trends locally and nationally. In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg announced Plan NYC 2030 “to create a greener greater New York.” and in April 2009, along with Chancellor Klein, signed on NYC as the first school district to join the Green Schools Alliance. In accordance with these initiatives, we should strive to achieve the most sustainable solutions for our schools, children and future generations.
We call on Mayor Bloomberg, our City Council Members and the NYC DoE to Achieve ZERO Styrofoam tray use in all NYC public schools by Sept, 2011
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Overview
NYC Public Schools throw out 850,000 trays every day! 1,100,000 students are being fed polystyrene and BPA's with their lunch (and free breakfasts). Some students are served 2-3 meals a day on these trays.
New York City can become a national leader in protecting our children's health and environment by using our innovation and creativity to address this travesty. The timing is right! This issue gives Mayor Bloomberg an opportunity to be a part of a solution to a solvable national problem.
We suspect that most NYC parents do not even know that their children eat directly of off Styrofoam trays (we didn't until our kids pointed it out during a visit to the Climate Change show at the AMNH). Our first goal is to heighten awareness of this issue by focusing on both children’s health and the environmental impact of polystyrene. The issues are complex.
Our goal is to completely rid schools of Styrofoam tray use by September, 2011.
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Why Schools Use Styrofoam
Styrofoam is inexpensive, lightweight and easy to make. It is a petroleum-based plastic, which is used in numerous products. Styrofoam lunch trays were first widely introduced to school cafeterias in the early 1990’s, probably to cut costs. Students use the trays once, for less than 30 minutes, and throw them out. The American Chemistry Council spends millions of dollars per year lobbying to keep products made with Styrofoam and BPA’s on the market.
Some schools in NYC are currently involved in a Styrofoam tray recycling program. While it may be preferable for these trays to be recycled, as opposed to being put into landfills, we do not see this as a viable solution. Currently there is only one company interested in recycling Styrofoam trays. The trays are picked up by a privately, not by NYC Department of Sanitation. Some parents have written to us that they suspect the trays are often picked up by the Department of Sanitation.
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The First Step: REDUCE
TRAYLESS TUESDAYS!
NYC Department of Education (DOE) SchoolFoods has taken the first big step in reduction by accepting our proposal, TRAYLESS TUESDAYS.
TRAYLESS TUESDAYS reduces our school cafeteria waste by 600,000 trays per week (Styrofoam trays will still be used for breakfast meals on all days) We will continue to work with SchoolFoods to further reduce Styrofoam tray use and to push for
The official city-wide launch date of TRAYLESS TUESDAYS is mid-March 2010. The initiative, developed with the help of design students at Parsons the New School for Design, includes a change in the Tuesday menu and lunch served in recyclable paper boats (similar to hot dog trays but, a little larger). The change is cost neutral, and might even be fractions of a penny cheaper per meal.
Parsons students also created poster designs to promote TRAYLESS TUESDAYS and improve recycling of milk cartons for all 1,500 NYC schools (serving 1.1 million students). The posters also publicize recycling of the paper boats, introducing a flip-tap-stack method.
We encourage all public school students and teachers to create original poster designs to support TRAYLESS TUESDAYS and improved recycling! SOSnyc will post all designs on a special web page. Please see our updated “Students and Teachers, how to help” page.
We plan to continue our work with SchoolFoods, in order to completely eliminate Styrofoam tray use ASAP! Research is needed to find alternative solutions that are environmentally sustainable, safe or our children’s health and cost neutral. We need the support of our legislatures and the Mayor’s office to actively support this research and to unite various city agencies to work together on new policies regarding school generated waste.
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The Ideal: REUSE
We believe that reusable, washable trays are the best solution. Students need to learn that we can no longer sustain a throwaway society. Throwing out 153,000,000 trays a year into landfills is no longer acceptable.
According to Stephen O’Brien, Director of NYC DOE School Food, there are currently only 30 schools with working dishwashers in NYC. The Department of Health currently demands that school trays, which are eaten directly off of, require washing at 180 degrees. We must work with the city to find the minimum temperature necessary to kill germs, keeping our kids safe with the smallest possible carbon footprint.
Continuing to work in partnerships with designers, design schools, and universities to develop new possibilities for re-usable tray options, such as personal foldable trays that the kids could carry in their backpacks and wash at home.
BBiodegradable or recyclable trays are not an environmentally better solution unless they are actually composted or recycled.
We are advocating the interim use of recyclable, single use paper trays. This would be a healthier option than the current Styrofoam trays. Students will learn to flip their trays, tap all remaining food off and stack the dirty trays. The city already has recycling pick-ups in place. This plan does not require additional trucks. This solution is only viable if we can assure that all recyclable trays will be tapped clean by all students and picked up and recycled.
Some DOE schools currently using biodegradable sugar cane trays (by self-funding the extra costs)
Manhattan, District 1 schools are: PS 61,PS 110, BARD HS; district 2 schools are PS 111 and PS 11. In Brooklyn, PS 154 is using the Bagasse trays and looking for ways to better dispose of them.
PS 154 in Brooklyn was the first school to use the Bagasse trays. East Village Community School, Children’s Workshop and PS 94 (all in one building) changed over to the Sunshine sugar cane trays in spring, 2009. The trays cost on an average 3 cents more per tray than Styrofoam and should not be disposed of with the regular trash. They require a separate hauler, adding to the overall carbon footprint of the use of such trays.
It is safer for the kids to eat off of the Bagasse or sugar cane trays if they are bleach and chemical free but, environmentally, if the trays are not composted, their disposal is similar to other single-use products. Sugar cane is a renewable resource. The fibers being used for the sugar cane trays would be burned, otherwise. The Sunshine trays are shipped from Asia.
Biodegradable products are not much better than Styrofoam if they end in a landfill. Both will be mummified. Modern landfills preserve their contents for posterity rather than transforming them into humus or mulch. Landfill designers are primarily concerned with controlling the amount of toxins that leach out of the landfills into the groundwater. They do this in part by preventing materials from biodegrading by not allowing air and water into the landfills. If the Styrofoam doesn't make it to the landfill (if it blows out of the garbage truck, for example), the situation is worse. The polystyrene can break into little pieces and find its way into the water, and, therefore, can be swallowed by fish and other sea life.
We hope to pilot a school lunch tray composting partnership with a local farm, serving the Green Market. A school that is using a biodegradable tray (self funding the extra cost) could arrange for trays to “hitch a ride” to a farm in an empty truck on its return route after a day at the Greenmarket. Please contact us if your school community has a partnership with a local farm via a CSA or educational program and you are interested in piloting such a program.
Some schools in NYC are currently involved in a Styrofoam tray recycling program. While it may be preferable for these trays to be recycled, as opposed to being put into landfills, we do not see this as a viable solution. Currently there is only one company interested in recycling Styrofoam trays. The trays are picked up by a private truck (not NYC Department of Sanitation). The process of recycling Styrofoam and picking it up separately amounts to large amounts of energy. Children are still eating hot foods directly off of polystyrene!
State Senator Liz Krueger’s office has been looking into the possibility of manufacturing potato trays, grown and manufactured in NY. Her staff is working with one of the SUNY campuses, researching this possibility. The only biodegradable potato plate manufacturer we have been able to locate is in New Zealand.
SOSnyc supports the reopening of the city’s compost stations (which were closed due to budget cuts) and advocates establishing of other composting solutions.
Manufacturers nationwide are developing alternatives to Styrofoam trays, but most are more expensive than what the city now pays for Styrofoam trays. As the demand increases for biodegradable and compostable disposables, more innovative and affordable products will be available.
In India, street food is commonly served in bowls made from a single, fibrous leaf, which requires only steaming to be shaped. It is then thrown on the street for goats and cows to eat. Although this is not a solution for NYC, inspiration can be derived from other cultures.
Some schools in NYC are currently involved in a Styrofoam tray recycling program. While it may be preferable for these trays to be recycled, as opposed to being put into landfills, we do not see this as a viable solution. Currently there is only one company interested in recycling NYC’s DoE Styrofoam trays. These trays are picked up privately, not by NYC Department of Sanitation. Some parents have written to us expressing concerns that their school’s supposedly recycled Styrofoam trays are often picked up by the Department of Sanitation instead.
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Current Legislative Efforts
NYC Public Advocate, Bill De Blasio, supports ridding schools completely of Styrofoam trays. http://www.billdeblasio.com/node/613 As City council Member, he introduced legislation to ban Styrofoam in NYC restaurants and city agencies (this bill does not cover NYC schools).
State Senator Liz Krueger supports a NY State ban on Styrofoam use.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/banstyrofoamny/index.html
Three hundred cities in the US currently ban single use Styrofoam containers.
Wellness in Schools http://www.wellnessintheschools.org spearheaded New York City public school's first bio-based green cleaning program called New York City Clean, Green Schools. Due to Governor Pataki's mandate, all New York City public schools were required to convert to green cleaning as of September 1, 2006. We hope to extend this program to cover the surfaces our children eat off of.
SOSnyc is has consulted and continues to be advised by children’s environmental health doctors, scientists, businesses and teachers. We are working to bring the knowledge from many experts in a variety of fields to this issue.
Let’s encourage New York City to be a leader in finding a solution to this 18 year old Styrofoam in schools dilemma! Write us with your ideas and suggestions.
info@SOSnyc.org
SOSnyc is not a 501 (c3). All our work is volunteer based. We were co-founded by public school moms who are professional designers/artists. Currently, we are working with Wellness in the Schools (WITS) http://www.wellnessintheschools.org in order to formalize a relationship for fiscal sponsorship.
Let’s encourage New York City to be a leader in finding a solution to this 18 year old Styrofoam in schools dilemma! Write us with your ideas and suggestions.
info@SOSnyc.org
