A recycling and composting program was launched in Andover High School's cafeteria this September by Hannah Krieger AHS'11 with great support from the AHS Administration and custodial staff. The program consists of eight waste sorting stations in the cafe that have students separating their remaining food and containers into liquids, recyclables, compost and trash. The Recycling committee and DPW have supported this program with funding and time. The support from students and faculty has been tremendous. The early results have been exciting - ~50% diversion of the weight of the trash!!!

The key to the program success so far have been volunteers in the cafeteria each day from 10:40 to 1:00p to monitor the waste stations and answer the occasional question about how to sort all their remainders appropriately. The Compost Team has a handout explaining it and has made it quite simple so mostly the oversight role involves being there so students know it is still important to separate and then thanking the students. Walking around to see the eight stations and performing occasional jiggling of the recyclables bin and compressing of the compostables and/or trash bins are the other very helpful tasks. We are reaching out to the Andover parent community for support to keep this program going. This is a great way to help students do the right thing,a chance to get a look at the high school, and support a program that will perhaps be adopted by other Andover schools as time goes on. We invite you to email Candy Dann (cdann@bedfordma.gov) and sign up for one day of help. Our hope is that through this we will find a group of volunteers who may be able to commit to a monthly lunch block.

To learn more please contact:
Hannah Krieger AHS '11 - hannahckrieger@gmail.com
Candy Dann, MassDEP Program Advisor - cdann@bedfordma.gov
Eleanor Storch, Shawsheen School parent and Andover Recycling Committee - eleanorstorch@verizon.net