Styrofoam Drive, Sarah Brody Webb at Bridlemile –
Thinking about the poor model the school was setting for students with only disposables in the cafeteria, the green team at Bridlemile wanted to eliminate styrofoam trays. But until that could happen, they did the next best thing: recycle it. Sarah took the lead in planning a drive. First, she found a recycler who would take the lunch trays if they were clean. The team started two months in advance by scheduling a member to come in after every lunch to rinse and stack the trays.
They scheduled the event in February and invited the local community to bring rigid packaging materials, which is usually at a yearly high after the holidays. They had good solid support from the principal and the custodian prior and had a troop of Brownies helping the day of the collection. The drive collected 1000 pounds of styrofoam that went to PC Plastics for recycling. That not only kept a lot of waste out o the landfill, but also kept everyone conscious of this single-use bulky material. Three years later, Bridlemile switched to durable trays.