Composting

          Our focus for our Civics in Action project is to convince the district board or principal to bring a composting program or policy to the St. Vrain Valley School District or Silver Creek High School. A composting program would entail that bins be placed in high areas of waste in schools, such as the cafeteria and kitchen area. Creating a policy like this will improve our local environment now and for the future, and could possibly create a chain reaction in many other environments, too. Furthermore, a composting program would allow all students and staff members to help make our school and environment a cleaner, better place. It would involve manpower to transport this waste to local farms and those farm workers to use this compost to make more food. It is all one large cycle that will, in the end, provide for the population and environment in a clean, green way. Dara Ward, the Energy and Sustainability director of the St. Vrain Valley School District, will be a large partner in creating such a program. She is in charge of the waste that comes in and out of our schools and environment. Erick Finnestead, the principal of Silver Creek High School, would be a possible large contributor to implementing a policy like this because he would be in charge of mandating what happens within the school.

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          We have come to discover that composting is beneficial to our environment because it allows us to give back to the environment that provided us food in order to future prepare and provide for more food. After we grow food on our farms, the scraps or unused bits humans leave behind can be broken down by our earth’s decomposers in order to richen the soil with nutrients. Then, this richer soil can be efficiently used to help us grow more food to provide for our populations. This process prevents a larger build up of waste in our landfills and overall ecosystems, which creates more methane (a greenhouse gas) in our atmosphere, something detrimental to it. It also helps prevent erosion faced by rainwater and runoff. Lastly, composting helps clean soil of pesticides and other chemicals we typically put in our agriculture. The impact: we obtain healthier, stronger soil and a greener, cleaner home that can provide for our growing population.

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 --> Here are some more research discoveries made along the way:

• $85 million is spent per year sending more than 50% of compostable waste to our landfills.

• The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 24% of our waste is organic material that can be composted.

• The average American throws away 1.3 pounds of food scraps every day.

• The effect of widespread composting on the ozone layer and greenhouse gas levels would be equivalent to removing 7.8 million passenger cars from the roads.

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          After learning more about our area of focus, it was time to take action. So, it was decided that sending emails to large contributors, such as Dara Ward and Mr. Finnestead, about this composting program will help us implement this program. Although, it is not just the “bigger people” that can make change in our local environment--it is the people, the students, the future leaders that have a fundamental part in creating a greener society. That is why we chose to survey students, 300 to be precise, in order to gather more information about what the people want. We constructed three questions that would bring us data or information useful to our arguments. We printed off the surveys and went around our free time handing them out. Then a Letter to the Editor would suffice for an eye opening ending to our project. By being able to write down our thoughts and our research, we may be able to catch the attention of more people outside of the district so that they, too, may begin to compost and help the environment. 

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          In conclusion, our project was to finally bring a composting program to our high school, where we expected that it wouldn't just impact the school and the environment, but it would also impact the minds of all the students and staff. Our first step was to email the Director of Energy and Sustainability in SVVSD and then to email the principal about the possibility of such a program. Next, by surveying students we were able to involve a greater population in our study and report. Finally, submitting a Letter to the Editor will sum up our project with, hopefully, an eye catching piece that might reach the hearts of others. Spreading the awareness of composting is our greatest goal for our CAP project and we may just create a dent in the minds of others.