Team Marine conducts waste audit at Samo

On Oct. 9 the beginning of a new trash and recycling program will be established across our district. Team Marine will be conducting waste audits, and their data will contribute to the district’s initiative and will help inform about basic statistics on SMMUSD recycling. Team Marine has already done two waste audits of Samo trash. A waste audit is a specific, deliberate process that can be used to determine the amount and types of waste that are thrown away in the given collection. Numerous students have confused a trash audit with a waste audit. “When we say trash audit we should really call it a waste audit because it is trash, but it’s also recyclables and it’s also composed of organic materials that could have very well been diverted from landfill through composting; so we got composting, trash and recyclables,” Benjamin Kay, Team Marine’s advisor, said. Members of this club involved in the waste audit include a range of students from grades 9-12 and work to create positive environmental change in our community.“Team Marine is a student-run sustainability club under the advisement of Mr. Kay. He gives us ideas and finds competitions for us to enter in. We try to do sustainability projects that’ll affect the campus and Santa Monica in general,” Ira Zimmerman (’20) said. Caroline Coster, the new sustainability coordinator at SMMUSD, approached Team Marine with a proposal to conduct a waste audit. Considering it has been years since Samo has done one, Coster believed that the Samo community needed more data on what students are throwing away. Over time, products and student behaviors change, so a waste audit will provide insight on the current crop of Samo students. “The waste audit at Samo will give us data as to what we are throwing away and will give us baseline data for when we start the recycling launch on Oct. 9. Then after the launch, another audit will show us if our recycling efforts were successful,” Coster said. When Coster asked Team Marine if they would be interested in performing a waste audit, all the members unanimously agreed to the task. When the club accepted this assignment, they anticipated an environmental advancement for Samo waste.   “We hope from the data collected that it will help inform our school district about how much waste we’re throwing away that could've gone either to a composting bin or a recycling bin,” Kay said. “But instead, we’re cramming a landfill that we have very few left of.” Coster also mentioned her insight on Team Marine’s role in the waste audit and what she plans to accomplish with the data collected. “Team Marine's waste audit is showing us what is being thrown away, what percentages should have been recycling, etc. The waste audits will provide the data that supports our efforts,” Coster said. This recycling launch will eventually involve all schools across the district, include numerous improvements to the way schools handle waste, and create some new duties for the Samo community. “The recycling launch is a District wide change in how we manage waste, from bottom to top,” Coster said. “For Samo specifically, I am changing bin liners, custodians are undergoing training, bins are being made clear for recycling and trash, waste collection is changing and students will be mandated to recycle.”Team Marine members Zimmerman and Ansel Garcia-Langley (’20) were very proactive in the conducting of the audit. They designed the experimental set up; they mapped out the whole study while organizing the necessary materials and methods. “We got together and figured out there was no way to do it neatly, we got all the trash bags and we set them up on the giant tarp on the construction area, where we stored the trash for three hours,” Zimmerman said. Kay is ambitious about the progress and hopefully for the outcome of the waste audit. “And one day, my hope is, that all waste that we generate will exclude trash, which nature cannot digest, and it will only be recyclable and compostable materials,” Kay said. Coster hopes that this launch will encourage other clubs and volunteers to assist with these new transitions. “At lunch, volunteers will be standing by bins to help educate students to ensure waste is sorted,” Coster said. Since Team Marine is the only club participating in the Samo audit, all students and clubs interested in getting involved are encouraged to attend a Team Marine meeting held on Mondays and Wednesdays during lunch in I215.