McNary Heights continues the battle against food waste and CBMS joins them!
McNary Heights Elementary School is continuing the battle against food waste with Food Waste Audits. FoodCorp members Lourdes and Teena, with the help of MHES’s leadership team and parent volunteers, conducted its first Food Waste Audit of the school year in December to collect data on how much food is thrown away during lunch in a single day. Their second audit was on February 23rd. In this audit, MHES threw away 286 pounds of food.
Lourdes met with MHES's leadership team to plan these first two audits to establish a "baseline" for how much waste MHES is throwing away. With this baseline, Lourdes and the team can strategize different ways to cut down on waste. Some of those ways include understanding which meals students do not like so nutrition staff can rethink future meal plans, holding grade-level competitions, and educating students on portion sizes.
A specific food item MHES plans to reduce is milk. From the data collected so far, milk is the most wasted food item. In the December audit, 84.7 pounds were wasted, and in the February audit, 80.7 pounds were wasted. MHES plans to reduce this number by ensuring students understand that milk is optional as long as they have two other food components selected and ½ a cup of vegetables and/or fruit.
With the help of parent volunteers, Lourdes and the leadership team will continue to conduct monthly audits to track their waste and progress. Their next audit will be March 23rd.
Also joining this battle is Clara Brownell Middle School. Teena led her waste audit team (CBMS leadership students and parent volunteers) through their first audit on March 16th. They found that just over 93 pounds of food were thrown away that day. Their next audit will be sometime in April.
Keep an eye out for our next update for each school!
Below are graphs showing how much waste was collected per food item and grade level at the MHES February Audit and CBMS March Audit. To read more about MHES’s December audit, please click here.
MHES Food Waste Audit:
CBMS Food Waste Audit:
