Rivendell's Eco Fail

ORFORD, NH--It is no secret our school produces a lot of waste. But it wasn’t always like this. Backtrack to the year 2016. The zero-waste movement is on the rise, much like global warming. Middle school math teacher, Chris White, decides to take a stand and supplies flatware to the school.

Fondly referred to as “Mr. White” by the students, Mr. White made it clear that we, the students and faculty of Rivendell Academy, needed to make a change in the habits of our school. “I think it’s extremely important that we use silverware for the simple fact that everyone keeps saying that global warming is the most important issue facing the current generation,” Mr. White told us. “And yet it’s the current generation that is not willing to put forth the effort that it takes to use metal silverware.”

Seeing that the amount of waste our school produces was a problem, Mr. White graciously purchased flatware for the café. However, the metal utensils quickly diminished in quantity as the days passed. The café had to resort to using plastic utensils once again. “If people would just return the forks or whatever they used for silverware, then we could use them. But I literally had none left,” Celise, Rivendell’s Food Service Director, said about the matter.

Some students have noticed the amount of waste that is piling up in Rivendell’s garbage cans by the end of the day. One of those students is Jason Ball, sophomore, who has a lot of knowledge on what happens to plastic after it gets thrown away. “What we need to do is, we need to have bins for these sorts of things so they don't end up in the trash, so they can be reused and recycled.” Jason is only one of the students here at Rivendell to notice the excessive amount of trash.

This raises questions that we need to answer as a community. How can we reduce the amounts of waste produced by the school? What kind of impact is this having on the environment?

We talked to Ms. Sanders, high school science teacher, to get some scientific perspective on the effect of plastic in the environment. We learned that throwing away plastic forks has an even bigger effect than some may think. “That refining takes enormous amounts of water, and it also releases carbon into the atmosphere and when you dispose of them, if you bury them or they end up in the ocean, we find that they end up breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces called ‘nurdles’ and those nurdles we are actually seeing start to accumulate in various plants and becoming an issue in the marine food chain,” Ms. Sanders informed us. “The use of plastic utensils as a daily way of getting food to your mouth seems like an environmentally poor choice...I know that even washing your metal fork over and over again is going to use less water than creating one plastic fork.” While we may not see the consequences first hand, the amount of waste does have a massive negative impact on the planet.

So what can the student body do to reduce the amount of waste the school produces? “I think it’s something that should be student driven because here at Rivendell, if we really want something done, student driven seems to be the way to get it done,” Mr. White said to conclude his thoughts. Solutions for this situation are still up in the air, but it is clear people are starting to care and have generated ideas. It’s up to us Rivendell, so what are we going to do?