Young Composters at Seymour Smith Turn Breakfast Into More Than Just a Meal

Earth Day is April 22, the annual celebration that reminds communities of the importance of preserving natural resources for future generations.  

It’s also a time to honor those who work to protect the environment. This year, the honorees include the 2nd- to 5th-grade students at Seymour Smith Intermediate Learning Center in Pine Plains, and their enrichment teacher, Nelson Zayas.  

Zayas said he got the idea when he noticed how much food was left over in the cafeteria following the students’ breakfast meals.  

As the co-founder of the Willow Roots food pantry, Zayas was more aware than most of how much garbage is needlessly created when food goes to waste. Composting – the process of allowing food and other organic materials to decompose into a nutrient-rich mulch that can be used for plants and gardens – is one way to address the problem, he added.  

Noting that “the best way to have an impact on the environment is by working at the community level,” he put together a plan to begin composting the school’s leftover food and recycling utensils and cups. The goal was ambitious: to create both a valuable learning experience for students and zero waste from the breakfast meal.  

To get started, Zayas obtained funding through a grant from Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, and received a donation from the Stewart’s convenience store in Pine Plains. He used the funds to buy buckets and bins for waste collection, aprons and heavy gloves for protection, and pitchforks and shovels to turn the compost.  

Zayas confirmed with Welsh Sanitation that every item used in the cafeteria was recyclable, from forks and spoons to milk cartons. He built a three-tiered composting system from wooden pallets donated by Winchell Mountain Coffee Roasters. 

Actual composting began in September 2021. Getting the program started in the post-Covid era was a challenge, Zayas said. “We still had social distancing restrictions, so students couldn’t help at first.” He put a bucket near each cafeteria table for food waste, and then personally dumped the contents into the composter at the end of the meal.  

When Covid restrictions were lifted in early 2022, the program moved into full swing. Now, every morning before breakfast, five students are selected on a first-come first-served basis to participate. Getting volunteers has not been a problem so far, said Zayas, who filmed a short video of students talking about the problem of food waste and proudly calculating the amount of garbage the program has successfully composted.  

The students don protective gear and help with the waste collection and composting. Kitchen waste is collected in three 5-gallon buckets set on tables near the back of the cafeteria. After students finish their meals, they dump leftover liquids like milk or juice into the first bucket, which is covered by a screen to strain out solids like cereal. Food and paper go into the second bucket, and recyclable utensils and cartons go into the third.  

Once all the students have finished breakfast and all the waste and recycling has been collected, the liquids are poured down the drain and Zayas and his volunteers carry the remaining buckets outside to the compost and recycling area.  

There, the students throw the utensils into the recycling bin and dump the food waste into the composter and cover it with shredded paper collected from the school office or coffee chaff – a byproduct of roasting coffee – provided by Winchell Mountain Roasters.  

The students monitor the amount of compost and recycling collected. The current average is 8 pounds a week, with a total of more than 330 pounds collected since the start of the program. From the first day the program was in operation, 100% of the cafeteria breakfast waste has been either composted or recycled, meeting the goal of producing zero garbage.  

The mature compost, which has been used in the Seymour Smith garden, is now so plentiful that some will be donated to the Pine Plains Community Garden.  

Zayas now hopes to extend the success of the breakfast composting and recycling program to include lunchtime food-waste collection, so that Seymour Smith produces no food waste whatsoever. The innovative program makes the school one of the first of its kind in Dutchess County – a distinction Zayas hoped wouldn’t last for long.  

“If we can do it, everyone can do it!” he said.