Valley View Elementary Schools Using Recyclable Cardboard Trays

Valley View School District 365U took its award-winning environmental efforts to new levels this year replacing Styrofoam trays with recycled cardboard trays in lunchrooms at all 12 elementary schools.

“It was time for us to search for an alternative,” said Meghan Gibbons, VVSD’s Director of Nutrition Services. “It was the right thing to do. It’s teaching our children to be environmental stewards.”

The switch has been a smooth one for VVSD students who now pick up their own trays and select items of their choice from the serving line.

“With the Styrofoam trays, my staff would place the entrées on the tray and the trays would be set on the countertop. The children would pick up the tray they wanted and then add their sides,” Gibbons said. “It just didn’t feel good for a dining experience. This looks and feels like a more traditional dining experience.”

Students will continue to “tap and stack” their trays when they’re finished eating, a practice initiated several years ago when VVSD began a recycling partnership with Dart Corporation in North Aurora. Now, instead of VVSD Facilities Department staff members having to drive the trays to North Aurora on a biweekly basis, the trays will be included in the normal refuse recycling pickup at each school.

All five middle schools and both high schools will continue using hard plastic trays that are cleaned in school dishwashing machines and re-used over and over again.

“We don’t have dish machines at the elementary level because there’s no room,” Gibbons said.

Photo: Students at Beverly Skoff Elementary School use VVSD’s new recycled trays at lunchtime. (Courtesy of Valley View School District 365U)

Submitted by Valley View School District 365U