AISD goes green
District joins local recycling pilot program
By Brenda Bernet
brenda.bernet@amarillo.com

School cafeteria operators for Amarillo Independent School District began participating in a new recycling program this month.

Instead of carting cardboard boxes, plastic and paper to commercial trash bins, cafeteria operators are saving what they can for recycling, said Brent Hoover, director for Child Nutrition Services.

Amarillo ISD contracts with Chartwells for food service management.

Materials saved for recycling are those that have not come into direct contact with food, Hoover said.

Drivers for Four States Recycling pick up the cardboard, plastic and paper from more than 55 campuses - 11 a day - in Amarillo ISD, said Ed Pruitt, general manager for the company. The company also picks up the big tin cans from the cafeterias.

Amarillo ISD is not paying a fee or receiving a reimbursement for the recycling efforts, Pruitt said. For now, the school district and company are trying to make the project work.

Pruitt hopes to have the operation refined in time for next school year, he said.

Hoover estimates the recycling efforts could reduce waste coming out of the school kitchens by up to 100 tons in a given school year. A pilot program will continue through the end of the school year.
"We take in 180- to 200,000 cases of product that are in cardboard boxes," Hoover said.

That doesn't count the cardboard boxes that Plains Dairy uses to ship milk cartons, Hoover said. Plains Dairy has a separate recycling program for those boxes.

Plains Dairy began using cardboard boxes instead of plastic crates to deliver milk more than 10 years ago, and a recycling program for those boxes began about six years ago, said Greg Meador, a spokesman for Plains Dairy.

Plastic milk crates take more energy to use because they have to be washed and sterilized, Meador said. When drivers make deliveries to schools, they take back any cases opened, as well as any of the Plains Dairy cardboard boxes cafeteria workers have stored.

Plains Dairy has similar efforts with the Highland Park, River Road, Borger and Pampa school districts, as well as with supermarkets.

Four States Recycling carts off the cardboard boxes for Plains Dairy, Meador said.