One essay changed the way Marysville Middle School served lunch. And now the change is spreading to other schools in the community.
Styrofoam treys were replaced with biodegradable cartons. Composting and recycling is now a daily effort by both the students and staff.. And the end result is about six bus loads of garbage less than before. Principal Pete Lundberg tells Q13 Fox News, "We were producing 25-50 bags of garbage a day. We had like two eight yard dumpsters that had to be dumped twice a week." Now he says that waste is down about seventy-five percent.
This change was spurred by a custodian at the school. Mathew Edgerton says his daily trip to the garbage got him thinking."Jumping on the dumpsters try to smash it down so you could close the lid at the end of the night. I guess jumping on the garbage, I'm thinking there's got to be a better way than this", explains Edgerton.
His union happened to be having an essay contest, so Edgerton entered. His essay won and included five-thousand dollars for personal cash and twenty-thousand dollars seed money for his recycle project. And now, his project is expanding to other area schools. "This fall we'll be starting with Allen Creek Elementary School, and we've got other elementary schools we're staging them right now to bring them online as soon as possible, says Edgerton." He adds that he's excited about what one person can accomplish with just a little effort saying, "It's changed my life to where I feel it's real easy to make an impact quite honestly with just a little persistence and initiative and you can make to do something you want to change."
Styrofoam treys were replaced with biodegradable cartons. Composting and recycling is now a daily effort by both the students and staff.. And the end result is about six bus loads of garbage less than before. Principal Pete Lundberg tells Q13 Fox News, "We were producing 25-50 bags of garbage a day. We had like two eight yard dumpsters that had to be dumped twice a week." Now he says that waste is down about seventy-five percent.
This change was spurred by a custodian at the school. Mathew Edgerton says his daily trip to the garbage got him thinking."Jumping on the dumpsters try to smash it down so you could close the lid at the end of the night. I guess jumping on the garbage, I'm thinking there's got to be a better way than this", explains Edgerton.
His union happened to be having an essay contest, so Edgerton entered. His essay won and included five-thousand dollars for personal cash and twenty-thousand dollars seed money for his recycle project. And now, his project is expanding to other area schools. "This fall we'll be starting with Allen Creek Elementary School, and we've got other elementary schools we're staging them right now to bring them online as soon as possible, says Edgerton." He adds that he's excited about what one person can accomplish with just a little effort saying, "It's changed my life to where I feel it's real easy to make an impact quite honestly with just a little persistence and initiative and you can make to do something you want to change."
