Students give new life to food scraps

Leftover food does not go to waste within the Ramona Unified School District thanks to a large covered tub on the Ramona High campus.

The Earth Tub composting unit is diverting food scraps into soil amendment that will enrich garden soil and reduce waste going into landfills.

Managed by Ramona High teacher Gloria Quinn and her Functional Skills Class, the composting program is benefiting many and drawing interest from community gardeners.

Last week Cindy Dodson, manager of Ramona Community Garden, and Donna Mayton, a master gardener from Ramona, met with Quinn and watched her class in action.

“We’re still learning the science,” said Quinn.

The school district has an agreement with the county, which owns the Earth Tub, to maintain the composting unit and maximize food waste diversion as a model program, said Rich Flammer, owner of Hidden Resources, a consulting firm hired by the county.

“This wouldn’t work without a champion like Gloria,” said Flammer.

Quinn’s students, who are called eco-leaders, have a daily ritual during the school week — collecting buckets of food scraps from the high school kitchen, weighing the buckets, adding contents to the composting unit, rinsing out the buckets, recording data, checking the Earth Tub’s temperature, and operating the unit.

“We have to reach a certain temperature to kill the bacteria,” said Quinn.

The 3-cubic-yard or 600-hundred-gallon Earth Tub can reach a temperature of 160 degrees, said Flammer. The tub can handle 50 pounds of food scraps per day as well as 50 pounds of wood scraps that are either generated by the district or brought to the school.

“We monitor everything that goes into the tub and everything that comes out,” said Flammer.

The food scraps come om eight schools in the district and are stored in buckets with lids in a refrigerated unit until they are retrieved by the eco-leaders.

Not all food waste goes into the Earth Tub. Any edible food suitable for donation is given to Ramona Food & Clothes Closet to distribute to those in need in the community. Some of the vegetative and bakery food scraps are separated and provided to Ramona High’s agricultural department to feed its animals.

Sophomore Travis Mehaffie, who serves as the ag department’s farm manager, said the food donation cuts the chicken feed bill in half, saving about $40 per month.

“It’s awesome. It helps us out so much,” Mehaffie said.

Since the program stated last September, a total of 4,027 pounds of food has been diverted and 816 pounds of food — equal to 680 meals — has been donated, said Flammer.

“I’m so impressed,” said Dodson after watching and learning about the operation. She added that it was wonderful to see the students involved.

According to Quinn, other groups at the school will work with her students.

“All working together. I really love that,” she said.

Quinn noted the many skills and responsibilities performed by her students and said they meet all 12 elements in the State’s Standards for Career Ready Practice. (See “California 12 career readiness standards,” page A3).

“It’s such a perfect fit,” she said.

According to Flammer, Ramona High’s composting program follows the Environmental Protection Agency’s food recovery hierarchy with incineration or landfill the least preferred method of ridding food waste, and composting, feeding animals, and feeding hungry people more desirable methods. He said he is not aware of any schools in Southern California with such a program.

In addition to the composting, Quinn’s class has the Dawg Patch Garden, with planters sprouting a variety of vegetables. Excess produce is sold or donated. The garden has a composting bin for such items as egg shells, banana peels, leaves and bark, and recently San Diego Drums and Totes donated eight rain barrels.

Recycling organic waste is the focus of legislation signed by the governor last September, Flammer noted. Assembly Bill 1826 requires the state’s commercial sector, including restaurants and supermarkets, to separate food scraps and yard trimmings and arrange for organic waste recycling service. The requirements will be phased in, beginning in 2016 with the largest generators of food waste.