by Cassandra Slemmer, SNCW Board Secretary
It’s a typical high school cafeteria, with students standing in line for school lunches and eating
bagged lunches from home. Yet, two changes are quietly making a big impact at Wenatchee High School.
First are the green bins for composting, sitting quietly next to standard trash bins. These are a
new addition, thanks to the efforts of the Earth Club, led by senior and club president Eva
Phillippi. Originally, Eva intended to focus on improving recycling efforts, but after conducting
an audit of cafeteria waste, she discovered that nearly 70% of the waste could be composted,
rather than sent to the landfill. This finding shifted the club’s focus, and composting became the priority.
Food waste, which according to the USDA is the single most common material landfilled and
incinerated in the U.S., is also a missed opportunity; that waste can be composted, turning it into rich soil for everything from agriculture to home gardens. Winton Manufacturing Compost Works, which offers residential and business-level composting services, partnered with Earth Club to help start the program. At its launch in the fall of 2024, Eva and club members set up
composting stations throughout the cafeteria staffed with volunteers to help educate students.
The program has been going well so far, and a recent audit showed that the contamination rate, or the amount of trash that is incorrectly sent to Winton, is only about 1%. However, the audit also revealed that 25% of waste in the conventional trash bins could have been composted, signaling room for improving the confidence of students to compost appropriately. To address this, Earth Club is collaborating with the DIY Class to create informative lids for the bins.
The second shift is the presence of rolling carts around the cafeteria, waiting to collect plastic
lunch trays. For previous WHS students, the trays would be familiar, but they were replaced by
single use trays during the COVID pandemic. Eva had reached out to administration about
making the switch back to the reusable trays earlier this calendar year, and in mid-January 2025, the transition was successful.
Looking ahead, the Earth Club is seeking a school budget commitment of $600 per month to
maintain the composting program, as well as to expand recycling with Waste Management to
include plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Earth Club members have also traveled to Olympia to talk to legislators about the need for more education in schools to help students have a better grasp on things like where our waste is going when we throw it away, and why it matters.
It’s exciting to see the significant strides these students have made in transforming the school’s waste management practices. From the introduction of composting bins to the reinstatement of reusable lunch trays, these changes represent the power of student-led initiatives in creating positive change. I, for one, think they’re on to something, and hope we see more of this type of savvy sustainability become the norm for our schools, businesses, and homes.
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