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A student throws out his food waste after lunch at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Angie Hartofilis, co-chair of PTAC’s green schools committee, shows the liquid waste bin in the cafeteria at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Third-graders Bryson Boddie, left, and Justin Naula throw their food waste into recycling and trash receptacles at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Third-grader Aliyah Cebanos stacks her tray after lunch at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Third-grader Samantha Abzun puts her unopened milk carton into the fridge to share with other students at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Third-grader Samantha Abzun throws her food waste into recycling and trash receptacles at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Julie DesChamps, founder of Waste-Free Greenwich, chats in the cafeteria at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Lunch monitor Angelina Petrone keeps an eye on students during lunch at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Third-graders Kyle Lliviacura, left, Flavio Pastor, center, and Thomas Nalepka walk to the trash and recycling bins to dispose of food waste after lunch at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

Angie Hartofilis, co-chair of PTAC’s green schools committee, chats in the cafeteria at New Lebanon School in the Byram section of Greenwich, Conn. Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. New Lebanon School is relaunching a waste-reduction program that local sustainability groups hope to spread district wide.

GREENWICH — New Lebanon School is reducing the amount of trash carried out at lunchtime — and could save the district money in garbage hauling fees — by resuming a waste-reduction program this school year.

And there are now extra eyes on the school's efforts as supporters of sustainability begin to make a case to extend its program to the entire district.

The elementary school is one of six schools that piloted the program before the pandemic. During the past two school years, the schools stopped some sustainability efforts while students lunched in both the cafeteria and gymnasium.

With Greenwich Public Schools’ cafeterias resuming full operation, the PTA Council’s green schools committee and Waste-Free Greenwich are encouraging schools to reduce their waste.

Organization leaders say that beyond helping the environment, their recommended steps could save the district money since there would be less garbage taken to the transfer station.

Julie DesChamps, founder of Waste-Free Greenwich, and Angie Hartofilis, co-chair of PTAC’s green schools committee, presented the program’s goals to the Board of Education June 16 and heard mixed comments.

They said they plan to gather data from New Lebanon School and other waste-reduction campuses over the next several months with the idea that the numbers will gain them support from the top so they can launch the program across more Greenwich schools.

“We think we'd have a lot more buy-in even from the principals if we had support at the district level. I find it like a little bit surprising that (the board) wouldn't say yes” to championing the program across the district, Hartofilis told Greenwich Time Monday. “There's a little bit of a lack of willingness it seems, but we're still optimistic.”

She said board of education members Joe Kelly and Christina Downey have met with her and DesChamps’s respective organizations and have been supportive.

DesChamps said she thinks the board saw the recommendations in the Zero Waste Schools Program proposal and were intimidated by the timeline. Superintendent Toni Jones and board secretary called the timeline “aggressive” during the June 16 meeting.

Their goals included purchasing sorting stations by this fall for schools that have not yet tried the waste-reduction program, resuming the waste-reduction program at the six schools that tested it pre-COVID-19 and establish a waste-reduction lead volunteer at each school. Currently, three schools are using the program.

The waste-reduction program at New Lebanon School allows students to donate unopened items from their school lunch to a “share table” that has a small refrigerator to keep food fresh. Kids who want can grab the items for free.

Students also are dismissed by table to throw away their garbage in a three-bin system. They pour liquids into a bin fitted with a funnel that carries the juice and milk into a container for custodians to dump out.

The recycling and trash bins have signs with examples of items that go into each container. Then, students stack their disposable trays to be thrown away later.

The tray separation reduces the number of times custodians have to take out the garbage, and the liquid separation lightens the trash; liquids comprise 26.2 percent of cafeteria's waste, according to the groups’ own calculations.

Lunch monitor Angie Petrone helps students who look confused and monitors the bins for trays, she said.

The Town of Greenwich pays trash haulers per ton, so PTAC, Waste-Free Greenwich, the town’s sustainability committee and the Greenwich Recycling Advisory Board calculated potential savings if every elementary and middle school separated the liquid waste.

The 14 schools amass 28 pounds a day in liquids, the groups calculated — saving the town $3,951 per year in trash tipping fees if poured down the drain.

Students at New Lebanon said Monday they didn’t mind taking the extra steps after eating lunch. Castiel Nazir, a third-grade student, said he didn’t remember what it was like before the current program. But he thinks recycling is a good thing.

Shane Taitelbaum, a fifth-grade student, said he wished he could recycle more things, like plastic bags.

Fifth grader Mason Fox said he noticed that the liquid bin allows him to recycle milk cartons and juice boxes that were half full at the end of lunch time.

Both didn’t realize that other elementary schools weren’t doing the same as they.

“We have good stuff to make the school better for the environment and better for us, and it helps us become better people,” Taitelbaum said.

The district will soon install a new dishwasher at New Lebanon School and move to reusable trays. The school had previously tried reusable trays, but the current dishwasher on site could not accommodate washing so many dishes each day, interim principal Lindsey Eisenstein said.

The school uses an average 224 disposable trays per day at an estimated cost of $3,859 each school year.

New Lebanon will also try out an organics hauling service that will take compost off-site for a fee.

The Connecticut Bottle Bill provided the funding mechanism for the organics hauling and the recycling sorting stations at seven schools, officials said.

Most of the district’s schools have a compost bin, apart from the Title I schools, but they are not used. The janitors’ union contract prohibits the schools from requiring janitors to take out food scraps, DesChamps said.

At Riverside School, which has a sustainability focus, students take food scraps to the compost bin.

Eisenstein said New Lebanon’s staff is “so supportive” of the program.

“That's the only way that it works, right?” she said. “You have to have support from the school administration, the cafeteria monitors and the custodians, so a big shout out to them. And they also noticed that it actually makes their life easier, because they're taking out less bags of garbage.”

DesChamps and Hartofilis said they are now hoping for support from the district’s elected officials and will return to the Board of Education once they have more data.