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Success Story: Beaver Lake Middle School
School District: Issaquah
School Location: Issaquah
Began Participating in the Green Schools Program: June 2009
Level One of the Green Schools Program: Achieved in April 2010
Waste Reduction and Recycling
- Beaver Lake Middle School maintains a strong recycling program in classrooms and the lunchroom. With support from the City of Issaquah, food scrap recycling was initiated in the lunchroom. Along with food scraps, approximately 45 pizza boxes are collected daily for composting.
- Each day Beaver Lake students fill six 20-gallon containers with food scraps and other compostable materials, totaling 28,000 gallons or 139 cubic yards annually. In the lunchroom, 32,000 gallons of recyclable materials or 158 cubic yards annually was collected. Including food scraps, materials recycled from the lunchroom totaled approximately 297 cubic yards annually.
- The student-led green team, called the Beaver Lake Environmental Education Preservation Organization (BLEEPO), observes recycling and composting behaviors and then creates intercom announcements to address common problems and to promote recycling.
- BLEEPO collaborates with school staff to deliver promotional and educational messages about waste reduction and recycling. The staff has been supportive of the Green Schools Program and all BLEEPO waste reduction and recycling efforts.
- Each spring, the school organizes a “Zero Waste” locker clean-out in which unwanted materials from lockers are recycled or donated to charity.
- A significant reduction in paper has been achieved because newsletters and fliers are sent electronically.
- The staff workroom has a reuse station for used office supplies.
- Beaver Lake, along with all schools in the Issaquah School District, has eliminated the use of drinking straws and polystyrene trays.
- The school uses a combination of durable trays and compostable paper trays, which are used at the end of each lunch period when the schools' supply of durable trays has been depleted.
For more information about the school’s conservation achievements and participation in the Green Schools Program, contact:
Jenna Velozo, teacher
velozoj@issaquah.wednet.edu
John Dunn, head custodian
dunnj@issaquah.wednet.edu
John Macartney, district resource conservation manager
johnmacartney@msn.com
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