Page 27 - Priorities #48 2011-January/February

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and wellness. For example, last year’s tenth grade retreat gave stu- dents the opportunity to help residents at the Sequoias to reduce the amount of junk mail they received. This helps reduce the resources and energy needed to produce, distribute, and dispose of unneces- sarypaperproducts. Otherstudentsonthesameretreatproduced videos that suggested ways that other students could conserve wa- ter in their homes.
Additional student efforts are demonstrated in the school’s as- sociation with the Daraja Academy, an all girls school outside of Nairobi, Kenya. These students are helping to raise funds for the operation of the African school, with the understanding that sus- tainable development includes the education of young women in developing countries, and is the best way to reduce fertility rates andslowglobalpopulationgrowth. Lastyear,studentandteacher fundraising efforts totaled more than one hundred thousand dollars. And, for her Senior Project, one student helped to collect and ship donations of athletic equipment, then traveled to Kenya during the summer to provide direction on the development of the academy’s athletic program.
Students participating in the Priory’s after-school Sustainability Club worked on a ‘healthy habitat’ initiative to improve the school campus and landscape, benefitting birds and other wildlife. Stu- dents installed twenty bluebird houses and four owl houses around campus, and assembled brushpiles using landscape debris. These habitat improvements have helped to provide suitable living space for a resident population of western blue birds and other songbirds. In May of last year, as a result of these efforts, the Sequoia Audubon Society recognized the Priory for our work at reconciliation ecology.
Because the kitchen and cafeteria are the crossroads of so many different resource streams, I began by looking into ways to avoid inefficiency and waste there. Working with a specialist from PG&E’s Fisher-Nickel Food Technology Center, I have overseen the audit of the school’s kitchen appliances. After reviewing the results of the audit, it is clear that there are opportunities to save considerable amounts of energy and money with some simple improvements to the insulation and operating schedules of appliances. In light of re- bates and planned rate hikes which accelerate return on investment, I will be encouraging the school to consider some major upgrades in kitchen equipment for next year’s budget.
On another front, the school is working to reduce food waste. Currently, putrescible prep waste – about 1000 pounds of cuttings from fruit and vegetables per month – are composted in a three-bin system that supplies the school’s vegetable garden with compost. And while diversion of this kind of waste from landfill has benefits that include the reduction of methane gas, landfill volume, and the
energy needed to haul the waste to landfill or reclamation sites, the real focus should be to reduce other components of food waste. Plate waste and over-production of food are inefficiencies that cost the school tens of thousands of dollars per year.
Looking for ways to address this food waste problem, the school’s Sustainability Committee worked with Andrew Shakman, thefounderandchiefconsultantofLeanPath. Inadiscussionwith members of the faculty and administration, Mr. Shakman pointed out that reducing food waste results in direct and indirect benefits to the school’s operating expenses, as well as the environment. That is, the over-preparation of food is associated with inefficient purchas- ing and serving policies, the energy needed to ship, store, and pre- pare the food, the extra labor costs associated with over-production, as well as over-use of upstream resource inputs such as the land, water, soil, energy, and agricultural inputs necessary to cultivate food whose destiny is to go un-eaten. This year, I am offering a new class called Food Production and Natural Sciences, focusing on sustainable agriculture. Students in this class have tried to address the food waste problem at school by growing ornamental pumpkins and using them as centerpieces on the tables in the school’s cafeteria. Each pumpkin serves as the base for a small plaque whose message is meant to inform other students about the impacts of food waste locally and globally.
And while some of these efforts have had immediate impacts on the school’s operations and the student community’s attitudes toward food waste, we are also looking to the future with the recog- nition that our biggest improvements will take time. Currently, I am working with the faculty Sustainability Committee to develop base- lines and benchmarks for energy use and resource conservation. These include the critical examination of the school’s energy bills with an eye for possible areas of energy conservation. Our target is to reduce energy use to the quantity produced by our solar arrays. Additionally, we are meeting with representatives from the county’s Recycleworks program to improve our recycling program in order to divert a greater percentage of school waste from landfill and save the school money on its trash hauling expenses.
The big lesson of all of our efforts here at the school is that sus- tainability efforts have multifaceted benefits, but that real change takes time and effort to achieve. And while much of our work will be accomplished by a few committed people here on campus, the work of those people will be most productive when it is informed by the experiences and knowledge of members of the greater commu- nity, and when changes and improvements in conservation efforts are coordinated with efforts at student education.