20 schools in the greater Los Angeles area competed in Grades of Green’s 7th annual Trash Free Lunch Challenge, and we could not be prouder of their results! The Trash Free Lunch Challenge is a competition for elementary and middle schools to see who can reduce their lunchtime waste the most This year, schools have collectively diverted 46,350 pounds of waste (over 460 tons of trash!) from landfills. Check out the press featuring these awesome schools below:
Keller is a Trash Free Lunch Champ – LBUSD News (also available here)
Los Alamitos school finalist in waste reduction competition – Orange County Breeze (also available here)
Saugus schools succeed in Trash Free Lunch Challenge – Santa Clarita Valley Signal (also available here)
Trash Free Lunch at OLG School – Easy Reader News (also available here)
Local elementary kids clear 460 tons of garbage and a 40 under 40 award winner (also available here)
20 Los Angeles schools have been competing in Grades of Green’s 7th annual Trash Free Lunch Challenge, and have made some big changes! Grades of Green Team students are championing awesome waste reduction programs in their school communities, and are collectively diverting over 400 tons of trash from landfills. Each of these schools has truly embraced the program in their own way, and we are so proud of their efforts.
After careful review, we are proud to announce the 6 finalist schools!
Elementary School Finalists (in no particular order): Victor Elementary (Torrance), Charles Helmers Elementary (Santa Clarita), Our Lady of Guadalupe (Hermosa Beach)
Middle School Finalists (in no particular order): Oak Middle School (Los Alamitos), South Pointe Middle School (Walnut), Helen Keller dual immersion Middle School (Long Beach).
Winning schools will be selected at the end of March, and will be announced in April 2018.
Each school in the Trash Free Lunch Challenge was unique in their own way, and as such we are pleased to give the following awards of recognition:
Berkeley Hall K-8 – Best Compost Award
Carthay Center Elementary – Litter Busters Award
Castle Rock Elementary – Best Recycling Award
Cyrus J. Morris Elementary – Best Education Award
Evelyn Carr Elementary – Best Green Team Award
F.D. Roosevelt Elementary – Best Food Recovery Award
Gaspar de Portola Middle School – City Leaders Award
Jackie Robinson Academy K-8 – Green Leaders of Tomorrow Award
Nettie L. Waite Middle School – Most Determined Award
Overland Elementary – Greenest Community Award
St. Anthony K-8 – Green Stewards Award
Skyblue Mesa Elementary – Community Activists Award
Whittier Elementary – Most Inspirational
William F. Prisk Elementary – Super Sorters Award
This program would not be possible without the support of our amazing sponsors. We thank the following: Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, Lush Cosmetics, Northrop Grumman, LA Kings Care Foundation, Los Angeles County 4th District, the Carton Council, and the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation.
Check our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts next week to see who the 2017-2018 Trash Free Lunch Challenge winners will be!
Interested in registering your school for the 2018-2019 Trash Free Lunch Challenge? Email us at info@gradesofgreen.org for more information.
At Grades of Green, we love a good eco-competition. Each school year, we host our Trash Free Lunch Challenge to see which school in southern California can be the best at reducing its lunchtime waste. In addition, we host our Water Challenge every semester to see which school across the globe can be the best at reducing its water usage. In the spirit of eco-competitions and the new year, Grades of Green decided to host a Zero Waste Week Challenge between our Los Angeles and New York-based offices to see which office could create the least amount of waste over the first week of 2018!
Here were the rules of Grades of Green’s Zero Waste Challenge Week:
1. Collect all single-use packaging and containers in a collection bin at the office and a bin at home.
2. Wash out all dirty containers before putting them in the bin.
3.Recyclable single-use containers are still counted as waste and should be collected. Why? Recycling takes up our natural resources, and only a small percentage of what is put in the recycling actually ends up being recycled. Only 9% of plastic waste is actually recycled!
4. Food waste can be composted and doesn’t count in the Challenge.
5. Sanitary items (such as toilet paper) don’t count in the Challenge.
Which office do you think won the Zero Waste Week Challenge, Los Angeles or New York? Check out our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) on Tuesday, January 16 to find out which Grades of Green office will earn the title of Zero Waste Week Challenge champions! Feeling inspired? Check out Grades of Green’s Waste Activities and encourage your school community to go zero waste too!
At Grades of Green, we are often asked if our lunchtime waste reduction activity can be successful at bigger schools, such as middle schools. Great news – schools with a high student population can make a big dent in waste reduction! Los Angeles middle schools participating in our Trash Free Lunch Challenge, such as Robinson K-8 Academy from Long Beach Unified School District, constantly remind us that all kids have the potential to care for the environment no matter what their age. Robinson K-8 Academy started off the 2017-2018 school year with approximately 1,000 students generating sixty bags of lunchtime trash.
After a school-wide assembly demonstrating Robinson K-8 Academy’s new waste sorting system, the school worked together as a community to decrease their lunchtime trash. The Female Leadership Academy students championed the effort, and helped form a Grades of Green Team. The student leaders taught peers where each lunchtime item went between a donation box, liquids bucket, compost bucket, recycling bin, and landfill bin. They even trained their younger elementary school level Grades of Green Team members how to be waste sorting monitors. At the end of the day, the entire Robinson K-8 Academy Grades of Green team helped their school reduce its lunchtime trash from sixty bags down to just seven! That’s a whopping 88% waste reduction in just one day.
Interested in signing up your school for an eco-competition? Click here to learn more about Grades of Green’s Spring 2018 Water Challenge, and email us at info@gradesofgreen.org for more details!