Bath Middle School students are leading the way on composting and sustainable gardening.
Spearheaded by the Greenhouse Club, the students have set up a composting program through Garbage to Garden in the school’s cafeteria. Now, instead of throwing everything in the trash, parent volunteers and middle schoolers help their fellow students sort their waste after breakfast or lunch.
“Before we didn’t have anything sorted, we just had four trash cans during lunch, during breakfast,” said teacher Maria Newcomb. “So now we’ve separated things so we have our compost, we have our landfill, or trash, and we have our recycling bin.”
Having a composting program at the school has been a goal for many students and teachers for a few years now.
“About three years ago, when students had approached myself and a few other teachers about having a compost set up here at school, we were told that we’d have to really figure out a way so that it’s not on school property, because compost for certain reasons could not be placed on school property,” said Newcomb.
Over the summer, a few teachers got together to formulate a plan for composting. They decided to contract with Garbage to Garden, a Portland-based company that takes compostable material off site and brings back compost for the school to use based on how much they deposit. Newcomb said that they expect to get 5-10 cubic yards of compost back at the end of the year. Of course, the program isn’t free, so the student council voted to provide the funds.
The Greenhouse Club, which is made up entirely of sixth graders, plans to use the compost in the school’s orchards and in the greenhouse. The club has been hard at work restoring the greenhouse, building garden beds and growing vegetables for salads in the school cafeteria.
Newcomb hopes that BMS’ program will serve as an example to other schools in the district.
“We’re kind of leading the way for the city of Bath with our efforts here at the school. So what we’re really hoping for is to get the program started here, hopefully it will be successful and then other schools in the district can follow our lead,” said Newcomb.
nstrout@timesrecord.com
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