1 Contact you City Council Member

Click Here to locate your City Council Member

Ask you City Council Member and the Mayor to:

1. Eliminate the use of polystyrene in all NYC DoE schools.
   
   
2. Provide financial support for the piloting of alternative food service ware products and closed system solutions.
   
   
3. Call for inter-agency support of such pilots.
   
   
4. Call for an official REDUCE POLICY and philosophy throughout all school cafeterias and government buildings.
   
   
5. Consider the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of food service ware in NYC DoE sourcing and contracting; acknowledge the “true cost” of products by accounting for the environmental impact of manufacturing, transport, and disposal.

Trayless Tuesdays have been enacted in all 1,500 NYC public schools. By not using Styrofoam trays on Tuesdays, the DoE has reduced Styrofoam tray use by 600,000 trays per week! We are delighted that the DOE recognizes that serving food on polystyrene is wrong.

We are still left with 3,400,000 trays PER WEEK that will continue to fill up our landfills.
Styrofoam is bad for our kids' health and the environment.

Styrofoam has been linked to obesity, premature puberty, neurological problems such as headaches, nervousness and fatigue, and endocrine related cancers. Styrene migrates from the tray into the food. The rate of migration depends partially on the fat content of the food—the higher the fat content, the higher the migration into the food. Many of our kids bypass the migration issue and just eat the styrene by scraping the Styrofoam trays clean with their plastic forks.

Polystyrene can remain intact for hundreds of years before decomposing. The trays take up a disproportionate amount of space in our landfills and they are not commercially viable to recycle. Due to the light weight of polystyrene, it is easily airborne and waterborne, and often ends up as litter. Polystyrene is one of the primary components of marine debris, and can be harmful to birds and marine mammals.

Let's protect our children and our environment.
We demand that city agencies work together to completely eliminate Styrofoam tray use and to develop healthy and sustainable alternatives.

Click Here to locate your City Council Member
Click Here for Sample Letter

2 Expand Trayless Tuesdays to Trayless Tuesdays, Fridays & Breakfast in your School
Click Here to find out how

3 Sign Up for our Mailing List

4 Pass our info along to all your friends

5 Impatient For Change?
Look into the possibility of composting at your school

Schools with composting can purchase compostable trays that provide a safer, more environmentally friendly alternative for your children.
Set up an appointment with your School Food Regional Director.
Contact Office of School Food at (718) 707-4300 to find out who your Regional Manager is.

Check our blog for updates on cafeteria waste reduction, recycling and composting! Visit our new companion site for resources such as how-to-guides, flyers, curriculum, and more.
cafeteriaculture.org

Ask your principal about allowing parents to provide reusable trays
(similar to messkits) for their children.

The trays would come in bags. Children would carry them in their backpacks and bring them home to wash.

How to order sugar cane trays from NYC DoE SchoolFood

As an alternative to styrofoam, your school can order sugar cane trays from the NYC Department of Education, Office of School Food. Your school pays the difference between the styrofoam tray and the sugar cane. Orders must be by case.

2011-2012 Pulp Tray Order Process:

• School pays the difference between the foam tray and pulp tray
  ($7.32 per 250 for foam trays vs. pulp trays $18.09 250/case)

• Effective August 2011 the new price is $10.77 per case pulp trays ($18.09 – $7.32 = $10.77)

• Orders must be by case.

• Prepayment is required

• School makes check payable to:
  NYC Dept of Education, Office of SchoolFood Services
  
  Mail to:
  Office of SchoolFood Services
  Attention: Latoya Spruill
  44-36 Vernon Boulevard
  Room 415
  LIC, NY 11101

• Schools can submit a purchase order. If the school enters a PO they need to contact Laura Chan, Office of SchoolFood 718-707-4375, LChan@schools.nyc.gov before processing the purchase order.

• SchoolFood will order deliver of the trays within a week of the check being processed.

• For general questions contact:
  Latoya Spruill, Office of SchoolFood 718-707-4246,  LSpruill@schools.nyc.gov

Please note: SOSnyc / Cafeteria Culture supports the use of compostable trays when schools are willing to work towards finding composting solutions, as opposed to sending the trays to landfills.
Modern landfills are designed to preserve their contents, rather than transforming them to humus or mulch. When compostable trays (such as Bagasse or sugar cane) and other compostables (like paper and food waste) are sent to landfills, they decompose anaerobically, without oxygen, creating methane and contributing to climate change. They do not break down the way they would in a compost pile!

School-farm partnerships for composting compostable trays?

Last year, CafCu/SOS suggested to PS 89 Liberty School (Battery Park) to partner with a farm for the ”back-hauling” of the school’s compostable trays, i.e., taking used trays back to the farm in their already in-the neighborhood, returning, almost empty truck. The school’s dedicated parent green team took the idea and made it a reality! They partnered with Holton Farms of Vermont, a CSA. Holton builds its farm business and school trays get composted. Unfortunately, Holton Farms is no longer doing business in NYC.

If your school is interested in building a partnership with a CSA, please email us.
For more information, see:
Cafeteria Culture’s The Full Story, Why SOS?
Cool 2012-  Compostable Organics Out of Landfills 2012.