Back to all Project Ideas / Ready, Set... WAIT, what bin do I put this in?
It’s hard to know what to fix if you don’t know where you stand. To start, if you want to kick off a recycling or composting program at your school or increase the success of an existing program, it’s helpful to know how much of each kind of waste your school produces so that you target the right items. Is the biggest culprit food waste, cardboard, or plastics? Let’s find out!
Get started
- Develop a waste audit plan with the green team and consider bringing in outside expertise for support.
- Using the information gathered in your interviews, determine what level of audit you will be able to conduct.
- Conduct a baseline waste audit and educate the school community by sharing your audit results.
- Create a plan for implementing and/or improving waste reduction efforts.
- Communicate the plan to the entire school community, even more than you think is necessary. Success will be easier if the plan becomes part of a gradual change in school culture.
- Implement the plan and measure your successes.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate!
- Your school community will be motivated by success, so they need to know if their actions are working.
Additional Resources
- Review the Environmental Protection Agency’s Teacher’s Toolkit with resources about waste.
- Explore the Environmental Protection Agency’s Planet Protector curriculum ideas (k-5).
- Browse the National Wildlife Federation’s Consumption and Waste Audit lesson plan.
- Explore Composting in Schools resources from Cornell University.
- See success stories from the Environmental Protection Agency’s WasteWise program.