In the 2022-2023 school year, Bret Harte launched a new student program called the Eco Kids, organized by principal Martha Walter, and the school鈥檚 PTA group. A food separation table was built for the school that allowed students to separate their waste after lunch and nutrition, placing scraps into the appropriate buckets: Trash, Food Waste, Recyclables, and Liquids.
The Eco Kids, students in 4th and 5th grade that have a passion for sustainability, volunteered at the table, helping their fellow students learn how to separate properly. The Eco Kids then weighed how much waste was being diverted from the landfill each day, tracking it on a white board in the hall for the entire campus to see.
This school year, Bret Harte has taken waste recycling to a whole other level. At the heart of this program is the ES80 Food Cycler, a high-tech machine capable of dehydrating and reducing organic waste using a 12-to-16-hour cycle. The machine macerates, masticates, and dehydrates food waste, significantly cutting down its weight and volume. The school generates anywhere from 65-130 pounds of food waste per day, and the Food Cycler has achieved a 70% reduction in weight and 80% in volume.