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Success Story: Pine Lake Middle School
School District: Issaquah
School Location: Sammamish
Began participating in the Green Schools Program: January 2007
Level one of the Green Schools Program: Achieved in May 2009
Waste Reduction and Recycling
- The school increased its recycling rate from 35 percent to 58 percent. To achieve this significant recycling rate increase, the school started to recycle a variety of items, including food scraps, in its lunchroom.
- Food scraps are collected each week by Cedar Grove Composting.
- Recycling containers provided by the Green Schools Program were added to the lunchroom for food scraps, milk cartons, juice boxes, plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
- Twelve Pine Lake staff members formed a Green Team and led conservation efforts at the school.
- Earth Service Corps, a student group, took the lead in posting signs and weeding out non-native plants in the school’s gardens.
- Students placed recycling stickers on all recycling containers. Provided by the Green Schools Program, the stickers list what can and cannot be recycled.
- To prepare for food scrap recycling with Cedar Grove, more than 40 students volunteered to create signs, monitor the lunchroom and educate fellow students. Several students created a video about food scrap recycling that was shown throughout the school.
- Pine Lake’s kitchen staff collects salad bar leftovers for use by home composters.
- The school spearheaded a “zero waste” locker clean out in which students recycled or donated their school supplies at the end of the school year.
A leader in the district
- Pine Lake Middle School was the first school in the Issaquah School District to complete level one of the Green Schools Program. Due to Pine Lake’s efforts and achievements, other Issaquah schools are planning to improve their conservation practices by participating in the program.
For more information about this school’s conservation achievements and participation in the Green Schools Program, contact:
Meagan Elliot, school counselor
elliotm@issaquah.wenet.edu
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