OPINION: We all know the stats around food waste: more than a third of what we grow ends up in the bin. And that can seem like a meaningless figure – particularly to a child who just doesn’t fancy the vegetables on their school lunch plate today. But when you see what this looks (and smells) like when it’s the collective scraps from a whole school, you start to understand the impact.
For too long, we’ve been part of a culture that throws things away without a second thought about where that waste goes. Waste might be quietly collected and taken away, but the environmental and financial cost reverberates far and wide – and that cost is now being passed on to schools.
Food waste is a growing challenge for councils, with significant environmental implications alongside the financial ones. And changes to the law earlier this year, as part of the UK Environment Act, mean food waste now has to be collected separately – with schools paying for commercial contracts that can be anything from £15-25 per week.
Benefits for schools
As a UK charity for organic growing, we engage and equip people with food growing, seed saving and composting skills – and this includes schools. Our Master Composter programmes help repurpose both garden and food waste, whilst educating, inspiring and empowering school communities to take responsibility for their waste, along with saving them money.
The Department of Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy requires all pupils to receive education about climate change and sustainability, along with a having a nominated sustainability lead to drive the agenda in schools and integrate the topic across all subjects.
On an environmental level, excess food production contributes to excessive water consumption, soil degradation, habitat loss and a decline in biodiversity. Again, that all sounds too big for a young person to relate to, so that’s why we need to get children on board in recognising how our food is grown, how to grow it responsibly, and how to ensure that it doesn’t end up as waste, but repurposed as a resource to feed the soil and complete the food cycle.
Composting offers a practical, low-cost solution that aligns with waste reduction targets and climate action plans. Garden Organic has developed hands-on, curriculum-linked workshops that make composting accessible and engaging for students and bring the wonder of nature back into the classroom.
One recent example is our collaboration with the Shropshire Good Food Partnership (SGFP). During this project, we’ve helped support more than 20 schools in the county to take control of their waste, with wonderful results for both the schools and the children.
We use games, stories, microscopes, puppets and treasure hunts, so children and staff can learn how they could turn fruit peelings, paper towels and cardboard boxes into compost. This, in turn, can be used in the school gardens to increase biodiversity, grow food, reduce waste and lock carbon into the soil.
Children discovered creatures that support the composting process, and their important roles as decomposers. Worms and springtails caused gasps of wonder when viewed up-close under the microscope, and children found a new appreciation of what waste can become. Our robust risk assessments and session plans ensure health and safety is at the forefront of everything we do, however we don’t shy away from the magic and messiness of nature, and wellies and getting outside with hands in the soil are firmly encouraged.
The SGFP have worked with schools to weigh their waste and measure the cost and carbon savings as part of the Schools Food Web Programme. Many schools now use HotBins to compost their food waste, with one school composting an average 40kg of waste from plates per week, saving 1560kg of food waste over the academic year. From this, it produces between 470-625kg of compost, which is used to create a closed loop gardening system for the school. Using Defra’s estimate of 0.9 tonnes of CO₂e saved per tonne of food waste, this equates to 1.40 tonnes of CO₂e saved during the school year, along with a financial saving of £585 from avoiding waste collection costs.
Young people frequently report a sense of helplessness in response to negative environmental news. Our workshops provide a practical and tangible way that individual children and school communities can make a difference and see the changes they have made. Schools report that food waste falls when items from the garden are included on the menu, and general waste reduces when there’s a hunt to see what could be composted instead.
Ways LAs can support schools in developing food education
- Develop a local action plan. Identify businesses and community leaders to consult and engage with them – consider setting up a food growing partnership.
- Support schools in their food waste initiatives and create ‘flagship schools’ to inspire other schools.
- Get external support. Look for gardening experts to provide training for school leaders and pupils to help them understand the closed-loop process and make better use of composting and recycling techniques. Engage volunteers to help run the project.
- Provide growing space. Work with schools to enable easier access to green space where growing and composting can take place.
- Incentivise. Work with your waste contractor to offer incentives – for example, Veolia provide free compost bins in Shropshire.
- Parental link. Ask school communities to get parents involved and support composting both at school and at home.
Its really good to see this work with Schools. Animal and Plant Health Authority did a lot of work on risk assessments around this sort of composting to allow it to go ahead.
The following page has some good guidance a a scoring system for a risk assessment https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-animal-material-in-home-work-or-community-compost-heaps