Every day, pounds of food waste leave Liberty’s cafeteria. This year, the Liberty Garden Club is working to make a change. Through the Liberty Compost Campaign, students turn leftover lunch scraps into an opportunity to build a more sustainable school and an environmentally aware community.
The Liberty Garden Club is launching a campaign to promote composting and recycling old food. The Liberty Compost Campaign is a way to spread awareness, inform and educate students about the excess food waste that occurs.
The Liberty Compost Campaign is a student-led initiative within the Garden Club to educate Liberty students about composting before a full composting system is introduced at lunch. Informational posters are already displayed around the school, and Garden Club members have been spreading awareness about how composting works and its importance.
Lucy Pottebaum (she/her), 12, explains the goals of this initiative and how it will be enacted.
“The Liberty Compost Campaign is the Garden Club’s way of spreading awareness and educating Liberty students on the importance of composting before we implement a student-led composting system into our lunches,” Pottebaum said.
In the coming weeks, the campaign will move from informing to influencing others to take action. The Garden Club is currently working with the school district to provide compost containers and compostable bags. Once implemented, a composting station will be set up in the cafeteria once a week during lunch periods. Garden Club volunteers will be present to help students understand what items can be composted and what should be thrown away.
Vincent Ni (he/him), 12, a member of the Garden Club, supports the idea and encourages students at Liberty to think differently about waste.
“Implementing a compost campaign is a great idea because it encourages people to be more mindful about waste and supports sustainability,” Ni said.
The campaign is about creating long-lasting change.
“The purpose of this campaign is to educate students on why it is important to compost and gain support from our community to fight for a more sustainable future,” Pottebaum said.
Composting helps reduce waste in landfills and produces nutrient-rich soil that can be reused.
“Composting is a simple act that can have extraordinary benefits economically and environmentally,” Pottebaum said.
The idea for the compost campaign grew from the Garden Club’s own habits. What started as a club objective will blossom into a schoolwide effort.
“As the Garden Club, we compost all of our waste from the Liberty garden, so why not get the entire school involved in the composting process?” Pottebaum said.
The compost collected from Liberty will be picked up by a repurposed school district truck and reused, with plans to expand composting to other schools in the district. The campaign will continue until a fully functioning compost system is established, with hopes of future students continuing the effort.
“It is my hope that after I graduate, the incredible students who have joined Garden Club will continue to impact the Liberty community,” Pottebaum said.
