Natural Bridge Elementary School (NBES) is a public school in Rockbridge County that serves children from Pre-K to fifth grade. It is one of 4 elementary schools within Rockbridge County Public Schools (RCPS).
Boxerwood Education Association (BEA) is an environmental education nonprofit organization in Lexington, VA. BEA has a long-standing partnership with local schools, including NBES. This partnership includes field-based learning programs as related stewardship action projects.
Prior to this project, NBES sent all waste, including food scraps and paper waste, to the Rockbridge Regional Landfill. Decomposition of food and paper waste in anaerobic landfills generates and releases methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to climate change. Composting food scraps and paper waste is a waste management alternative that eliminates most of the methane production caused by decomposition.
In 2022, Boxerwood undertook a pilot composting project with NBES, funded in part by a grant from the World Wildlife Fund. On February 9, 2022, BEA delivered two Earth Cube composting units to NBES for the purpose of creating compost from cafeteria food waste and shredded paper waste. The school used compost to fertilize the NBES garden, which produced food for the NBES food pantry. Implementing a composting program thus supports NBES broader service learning goals.
Lunchtime composting commenced March 29, 2022 with NBES staff assisting students sorting their leftovers in the cafeteria. NBES piloted this program with fourth and fifth graders before including additional grades throughout the following year. There were some unavoidable starts and stops in the consistency of collection as Boxerwood and NBES worked together to refine the pilot system.
In the winter of 2023, BEA educator Ginny Johnson, joined by Washington & Lee student Belen Delgado Mio, led an afterschool compost club at NBES, both to engage students more closely in the composting process and to reenergize the program after a setback in food waste collection. Students who participated in the club learned about the lifecycle of compost, how to sort their own food waste, and how to work as a team to use the composters. Club participants served as waste monitors during lunchtime and after school snack time to ensure that their peers sorted waste correctly and continued to do so after the conclusion of the club. Sorting through waste during snack time and at lunch established composting as a routine part of the school day for students in and outside of the compost club.
Over the course of one school year of collection, students at Natural Bridge Elementary School diverted 1,156 lbs of food waste from the landfill, which is equivalent to preventing 3 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The food waste was successfully converted to compostable material during its time in one of the two Earth Machine composters placed by Boxerwood at the school. With a successful food diversion/composting outcome, this project therefore generated 3 offsets.
