Wilson Middle School has taken the next step in reducing its waste stream by piloting a composting program for the Butler County Recycling and Solid Waste District.

“This is our first attempt at capturing organic material and food waste from cafeterias at our public schools,” said Anne Fiehrer Flaig, district coordinator.

The effort, which went into operation after the winter break, was spearheaded by science teacher Kristin Yordy and her Green Club, and has already shown remarkable results.

Cafeteria custodian Rusty Johnson reported that the cafeteria was averaging 11 bags of garbage every day, but that has been reduced to about two bags a day. The remainder is either recycled or composted material, and will likely result in fewer trash pick-ups at the school, which is currently done three times a week.

Yordy and Flaig both emphasized that the composting effort could only be the result of a concerted effort by everyone in the building, from the custodians and kitchen workers to the administrators and the 700 students in the school.

“All of these elements aligned and I realized when I saw this level of interest, I realized that this is what it would take to create a successful program,” Flaig said.

It began last semester by introducing the students to the concept of composting.

“When I asked all of my classes who was familiar with composting, I was lucky if I got one hand up out of 160 students,” Yordy said. “That’s to be expected in an urban school district, which makes the success of this program much more impressive because they don’t already have that instilled in their lives.

“Now they feel empowered about it, to know that they can make an impact,” she said.

Yordy and her science students also did a manual waste assessment, literally going through bags of cafeteria waste and separating the recyclables and compostables from true garbage.

“We determined that over 70 percent of the waste generated out of the cafeteria is organic and could be composted and diverted from the waste stream,” Flaig said.

With the cooperation of the food service staff, the school eliminated the use of Styrofoam products and plastic straws to further reduce the amount of waste.

Students were given classroom activities, such as making predictions of waste reduction, then sharing their predictions using graph and table data.

The awareness effort included three-dimensional posters created by the Green Club to illustrate the difference between the three types of waste and a slogan contest. The winning effort: “Green is Clean: Do the Right Thing.”

“We put signs all over the school, including the back of bathroom stalls,” Yordy said.

When the program went live, Yordy and Flaig gave students stickers — “I Composted Today” — to generate enthusiasm and help them feel like they are part of a movement.

The compostable material is collected by Future Organics, a subcontractor for the Rumpke Corporation, which delivers the material to one of three farms in the region that turns it into rich organic soil, Flaig said.

“This is our pilot program for the county,” Flaig said. “I wanted to see how well it would work so that we could go to other schools if we have the same buy-in from the bottom up.”