Normandy Elementary spins lunch scraps into organic gold

Normandy students Tyler Yohman and Grahm Conway stand near Normandy's 209-gallon composter.  

Normandy Elementary students and staff have been rerouting their apple cores, banana peels and orange rinds for the past eight months to make compost for your garden! Last year, thanks to a grant from The Village Foundation, Normandy purchased a 209-gallon composter. Students and staff place their fruit and vegetable scraps in small green buckets which are located throughout the school.

At the end of each day, a staff member empties the buckets into the large composter and gives it a turn to allow for mixing and air flow. In the fall, the students collected brown leaves to add to the composter to help balance the greens and browns which are necessary for making compost.

Staff and students at Normandy compost approximately 10 pounds of food scraps each day, which prevents nearly 1,500 pounds of waste each year from going into conventional garbage cans.

If you would like some of this nutrient rich compost for your garden, you are welcome to come to Normandy to pick it up. Bring a shovel and a bucket to transport it back to your house. The compost will be near the northeast side of the parking lot, in the grassy area behind the dumpster.

Compost will be available on a first come, first serve basis, starting on May 24 and ending on June 2.

Lindsay Rinehart

Lindsay Rinehart is a kindergarten teacher at Normandy Elementary School in Bay Village.

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Volume 6, Issue 10, Posted 9:56 AM, 05.13.2014