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Every day “being green” at Butte Creek School means putting cafeteria food scraps into an outdoor compost bin. And washing out milk cartons and half-empty yogurt containers for their classmates. And collecting recyclables.
The grossest job is probably, “digging through the compost and peeling the stickers off banana skins,” said student Jayden Dewitt.
“’Tis not for the fainthearted,” chimed in classmate Quinn Kelley.
Eighteen middle school students in teacher Garron Lamoreau’s leadership class are working to achieve “zero waste” lunches and other environmental goals at Butte Creek to make it the only certified Oregon Green School in the Silver Falls School District.
“They’ve been so good, so amazingly dedicated to doing icky jobs,” Lamoreau said.
“They have filled up the school’s recycling bin four times this year already, and they are great about teaching other students – I think kids are the best messengers to each other.”
Right now, the leadership class – unofficially known as the Green Team – is running a month-long “zero waste” lunch challenge, pitting classrooms at their rural K-8 school against each other. At the end of the competition, the class that’s logged the most days with no lunchtime garbage will earn a pizza party.
Seeking green status, Butte Creek recently underwent a waste audit from Clackamas County Refuse & Recycling Association’s Laurel Bates. She’s also a local coordinator for Oregon Green Schools, part of a team that’s helped nearly 200 schools achieve recognition since the program started 20 years ago.
Silver Falls School District administrators said the old Mark Twain Middle School once earned certification.
“To become an entry-level Oregon Green School, a school must have an effective and permanent recycling and waste reduction program, analyze its energy and water use, do a waste audit and set goals to work on over the next three years,” Bates said.
When Butte Creek’s leadership team analyzed the contents of a single day’s trash, most classrooms had “little to no garbage,” Lamoreau said, but his students did find some paper and school supplies, such as pencils, had been thrown away. The trash can in the staff room actually contained the most recyclables.
“The students were definitely tickled by that,” Bates said.
“The most important thing (the Green Team does) is just give people an opportunity to reduce and recycle their waste,” Lamoreau said. “We try to make it easy for them. People want to do good, and if you give them the opportunity, they will.”
His own journey to becoming Butte Creek’s environmental advocate began when he advised a group of students who graduated eighth grade in 2014. They started a Random Acts of Kindness Club, which planted the school’s garden and did a cleanup at Silverton Reservoir.
In that original club was Tyler Bishop, now a high school student who regularly returns to Lamoreau’s class to help with leadership projects. Last year, he helped build the wooden compost bin by the garden; it should yield its first compost this spring.
After that, Lamoreau took a two-year leave of absence to teach at the International School of Panama. From their apartment overlooking the beach, he and his wife could see firsthand the shocking amount of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean.
“You realize how much garbage is out there,” he said. “We do a pretty good job of hiding it up here … it’s out of sight, out of mind.”
When he returned to Butte Creek in 2016, he began showing his students what he’d seen and learned. At first, a small group worked on environmental measures, while others focused on more traditional leadership tasks. Now everyone in the leadership class, which meets daily, is taking part in the effort to be greener.
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When they earned $900 at a school dance, leadership students opted to spend some of the money to cut down Butte Creek’s use of disposable plastic water bottles. They bought a $90 water filter to make the school’s well water more palatable and designed reusable water bottles, which they sold at a $2-apiece loss, to the school community.
A video the class watched about “an island of plastic water bottles floating in the ocean,” was an image that stuck in student Zach Kuenzi’s mind and continues to motivate him to do his regular recycling jobs in the lunchroom.
“We are trying to help our community and improve our future,” said another student, Valya Barsukoff
“These kids are inheriting a world choking with plastic. I tell them it’s not their fault, but they will have to be the ones to clean it up,” Lamoreau said.
Avoiding disposable plastic altogether is now more important than ever, as recyclables are stacking up across Oregon. In the past, the state sent much of its recycled plastic and paper overseas. But China banned many such materials from being imported, starting Jan. 1, citing contamination concerns.
Only this month, a dozen Oregon recyclers received permission to send paper and plastic to landfills.
At Butte Creek, students had an impressive recycling system in place before they ever sought Green School status; now they are fine-tuning it and moving onto water and energy conversation, Bates said. Possible measures include installing sensor-controlled light switches and teaching conservation or even buying solar panels.
“We are proud that the students and staff are focused on these efforts and that they want to educate themselves about being responsible consumers and recyclers,” said Asst. Supt. Dandy Stevens.
The Butte Creek leadership team comprises Richard Vasquez, Jessica Gaspar, Valya Barsukoff, Quinn Kelley, Evan Good, Mark Snyder, Jenna Purdy, Jason Leon, Zach Kuenzi, Isabella Frolov, Rachel Kurns, Andy Alba, Rosa Quintero, Abigail Thompson, Kalyssa Efimov, Jaiden Rablin, Jayden Dewitt and Gaven Stetson.
To learn more about the statewide program, log onto http://oregongreenschools.org.