The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) board this week got its first look at a new zero waste education program that will be rolled out in Sea to Sky Corridor schools in the fall.
Kimberley Armour, the SLRD's environmental educator and zero waste program co-ordinator, on Monday (July 25) gave the board a sneak peek at the program, which will encourage students at the primary and high school levels to reduce the amount of garbage they send to landfills.
Armour said the program came out of the SLRD's Solid Waste Management Plan and will have separate programs aimed at educating students in Grades 4 and 5 and also in Grades 11 and 12.
Armour said she will kick off the program in 20 schools throughout the district between September and December.
At the Grade 4/5 level, the focus will be on moving toward a garbage-less lunch, said Armour.
"Students will learn about zero waste through the lens of reduce, reuse, recycle," said Armour, who added that the younger students will conduct a garbage audit from their lunches on presentation day, then be challenged to bring in garbage-free lunches one week later.
Grade 11 and 12 students, meanwhile, will complete a much more detailed audit by taking samples of garbage in their schools' dumpsters and sorting through it by type, then later setting up a display in the school that reports the findings.
Students will then be tasked to devise a zero waste plan for their school and submit a proposal to SLRD staff that includes both written and creative components.
The school with the students producing the best submission will receive a $1,000 honorarium to implement their plan.
Armour added that a blog and Facebook page dedicated to the program will be set up, tracking good examples of garbage-free activity that result from the program and highlighting photos of work done by students of both age groups. She said the intent is to make this a year-to-year program and to include both public and First Nations schools.
"I love the school-based program," said board chair Susie Gimse, who noted that her own children were impacted when receiving similar education. "This is going back many years and my kids started digging cans out of the garbage. They were in Grades 2 and 4 at the time and they're now in their 30s.
"I think it's great that we're targeting children."
The total cost of the program to the regional district is $13,000, money that comes from the budget for the Solid Waste Management Plan.
