Waste Free Schools Program 

Overview and Scope of Work:  The Waste Free Schools Program (WFS) is an innovative, collaborative, award-winning program which assists Santa Cruz County schools in institutionalizing on campus recycling, composting and reducing/reusing programs while instilling in the students and school staff a sense of environmental stewardship. The WFS is a joint program of Ecology Action, Life Lab Science Program and the Santa Cruz County Office of Education.  The role of each of the program partner is as follows:

Ecology Action: Ecology Action’s role in the WFS is to provide technical assistance for schools in establishing functioning waste reduction systems on campus. Ecology Action provides necessary infrastructure, ensures communication between key participants, works with waste haulers, and continually evaluates current systems for improvement and expansion. Ecology Action staff conducts waste assessments for each participating school at the beginning of every school year. A follow up waste assessment is also done at the end of each school year.

Life Lab Science Program: Life Lab Science Program’s role in the WFS is to increase resource conservation related education to students at participating schools and to provide three to five trainings annually in continuing education for WFS lead teachers. One to three lead teachers are designated at each school and are required to attend on-campus meetings with WFS staff, communicate with fellow staff regarding WFS on campus, follow through on established tasks, set up, maintain and improve of recycling, composting, reducing/reusing systems, participation in WFS teacher trainings, and use of environmental education curriculum in their classrooms

Santa Cruz County Office of Education: The Santa Cruz County Office of Education (SCCOE) is the fiscal fiduciary of the WFS. The SCCOE also supports program partners through printing, administrative and graphic design assistance.

Additionally, the students of participating schools, under teacher supervision, are required to put on one event that spreads the resource conservation message to the greater school community each year.

Target audience(s): All public schools in Santa Cruz County, Public School Administrators, Staff, Students, and the greater community.

Funders: City of Capitola, City of Santa Cruz, City of Scotts Valley, County of Santa Cruz, and Waste Management of Santa Cruz.

Funding Level:  $52,246

Program Partners: Ecology Action, Life Lab Science Program and Santa Cruz County Office of Education.

Timeline:  Funded for fiscal year 2004. Currently negotiating 2 year budget for 2005/2006.

Staff Members Working on Project: Molly Ober is the Program Manager and is supervised by Kirsten Liske.

Desired Behavior Changes: set up, maintenance, and improvement of paper, cardboard and mixed container recycling, food composting, and a wide variety of reuse and reduce systems.

Desired Outcomes of Program: institutionalizing on campus recycling, composting and reducing/reusing programs while instilling in the students and school staff a sense of environmental stewardship. To date we have reached 27 schools and plan to continue outreach to new schools eventually reaching all the schools throughout Santa Cruz City and County.

Results: The WFS was established in September 1997. At that time, there were five participating elementary schools. The WFS is now in its 7th year and has provided support and technical assistance to 27 elementary, middle and high schools throughout the County. As of last year, the WFS has succeeded in diverting over 1200 tons of material from local landfills and have saved local school districts approximately $100,000 in reduced garbage hauling costs. These figures are from last year and by the end of this year we will see an even greater amount of diverted materials and cost savings to schools. Our website is wastefreeschools.org and will be updated next month.