Eco Club promotes ‘upcycling’ at Lake Bluff Elementary
by linda blaser lblaser@pioneerlocal.com February 7, 2012 11:30AM
4th grader Nitika Elkin shows off some reuseable products at Lake Bluff Elementary School. | Joel Lerner~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 10, 2012 8:05AM
The chattering came to an abrupt halt as the parade of new “upcycled” products began during lunch at Lake Bluff Elementary School on Feb. 1.
The tables full of students continued eating, taking sandwiches out of reusable bags, drinking water from stainless steel bottles and eating hot food from insulated containers.
Though they didn’t stop eating, the new products caused a stir. It’s not every day you see a colorful backpack made from Lays potato chip bags and pencil cases made from Sun Chips pouches.
“I want to get a backpack,” said Laine Gamrath.
“I would like to get all of this stuff,” said Nikita Elkin.
Both fourth-graders represented the Eco Club, which is sponsoring an eco-friendly product sale in February to support the school’s environmental endeavors.
Reusable cloth snack and sandwich pouches and reusable lunch boxes and thermal bags already cluttered the lunch tables, where the students at LBES have truly embraced waste-free lunch.
Lucas Scroggins, a second-grader, opened a small plastic box containing apple slices.
“It’s usually apples,” he said, plucking one from the pack.
Anything he has that isn’t reusable, Scroggins said he is sure to place in the cafeteria’s recycling bins.
His friend, George Bentley, finished up his macaroni and cheese, collapsed his reusable spoon and replaced it in the lid of his Thermos, where it belongs, for tomorrow’s lunch.
“Sometimes I have soup,” Bentley said.
‘Totally different’
As the students prepared for recess and packed up their stuff, others put in the recycling bins the snack bags, water bottles and milk containers that can be recycled, while just a few feet away the bins containing the mounds of colorful lunch bags for the next class sat.
“I’ve definitely seen a difference in lunch over the years,” said teacher Frances Zale. “Lunch boxes look totally different and the students understand why they look different.”
Terms like “recycling,” “reusing” and “upcycling” are part of the students’ everyday vocabulary.
In her second grade Eco Club, Chloe Lomax is among the members who sort through boxes set up for each classroom to collect what was once considered garbage but now is used in another way.
“Upcycling is when you change recycling into something new,” Lomax said, like the Lays backpacks. “We’re sorting through the boxes and putting everything into groups. We have 215 or so Capri Sun juice boxes, and we’re also upcycling empty glue sticks and bottles,” she said.
Like most of her schoolmates, Lomax carried her lunch in a reusable bag with reusable containers to support an effort that began two years ago when “waste-free Wednesdays” began.
“The students have done a great job of bringing reusable containers and drink bottles. We have truly made an impact,” said teacher Eileen Chirhart. “Last year, the team weighed the garbage and discovered we reduced our waste by 50 percent.”
This year, LBES has upped the environmental effort with a goal to be waste-free every day. That effort has had a spillover effect and taught the kids to be ambassadors for the environment outside school walls.
Third-grader Any Wehmeyer, eating cookies he took out of his plastic compartmentalized lunch box, summed it up best: “I’m trying to get them to recycle more at home, but my brother still wraps everything in plastic wrap.”
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