If you want to know what led a bunch of shivering teenagers to sort through the trash behind Prosser Career Academy one recent, icy day, try to get your head around this statistic:
Every day, kids in the Chicago Public Schools district throw out nearly a quarter of a million lunch and breakfast trays made of polystyrene foam. That's more than 1 million a week, about 5 million a month.
And those trays are just the start of a river of trash from school meals that ends up in landfills, including nacho-stained containers, half-empty milk cartons, plastic cookie wrappers and plastic tubs that will sit in thick polyethylene bags for centuries without biodegrading.
The Prosser students, led by biology teacher Marnie Ware, found their Belmont-Cragin-area school created 1,500 pounds of cafeteria garbage a day over five periods, including breakfast.
"None of it is being composted or recycled," Ware wrote in an e-mail to the Tribune. "We decided that this was disgusting and unacceptable."
Prosser is just one school in a district that produces roughly 400,000 meals a day. Because many of the district's schools have no working kitchen, a lot of the food comes packaged in individual boxes and wrappers. But the petroleum-based polystyrene trays make up the bulk of cafeteria garbage and remain one of the thorniest issues in green lunchroom debates.
Though cafeteria waste is an issue for all schools, mega-districts such as Chicago's, where more than 80 percent of the population receives free and reduced meals, draw the most fire because their waste policies can have such a profound impact.
Environmentalists inside and outside of the district say the practices in Chicago lunchrooms aren't just bad for the planet but undermine the messages children hear in class about environmental stewardship. And they seem out of place in a city often touted by its mayor as one of the greenest in the nation.
Some advocates also object to polystyrene trays for health reasons. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers expanded polystyrene safe for food service, a new group called No Foam Chicago has formally asked the district to eliminate the foam trays on both environmental and health grounds. The group contends that styrene (considered a possible human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer) can leach from the trays into heated food.
In the last two decades, some fast-food chains — including McDonald's — have phased out polystyrene, and dozens of U.S. cities have banned it from food service. But cash-strapped school districts have been some of the slowest to stop using the trays. For many districts that had served food on washable trays, foam trays seemed like a way to save money and labor, though they also increase waste-hauling expenses.
Now, rising environmental and health concerns have inspired even some of the nation's largest districts to act. New York City's Department of Education is expected this month to announce the elimination of foam trays from food service at least one day a week. The program, which some call No Tray Tuesdays, could save 820,000 trays from the landfill each time. In Los Angeles, officials recently informed the school district the city is willing to pick up and recycle foam trays, according to the district.
At Prosser, Ware's students are trying to stem the flow of cafeteria garbage in partnership with the Chicago Conservation Corps, a city organization that has sponsored clubs in 90 public city schools. Adults working on the issue say that they are frustrated with the district bureaucracy but inspired by the energy and idealism of the students.
"I joined the ecology club," said Prosser junior Erika Santana, "because I want to make the Earth a better place."
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