ROVER ALERT: The Rover scheduled for tomorrow at our Drop-off Center in Essex is postponed until 5/31 due to weather & potentially high winds. Customers with hazardous waste may bring it to the Environmental Depot at 1011 Airport Parkway in South Burlington - open until 3:00. No appointment necessary for tomorrow only.
School Spotlight: Champlain Elementary School Shines Bright In Sustainability
This month’s School Spotlight highlights Champlain Elementary School (CES) in Burlington—a long-time partner in sustainability with CSWD.
In 2023, CES earned the Changemaker Award for making the most significant improvements in CSWD’s Recycle Rally Challenge, which encourages schools to step up their recycling and sustainability game.
And they didn’t stop there.
This year, CES took second place in the first-ever Battery Blitz—a friendly, four-week competition among Chittenden County schools to collect and recycle as many batteries as possible. Champlain Elementary School’s 4th and 5th graders collected over 1,000 pounds of batteries, earning the school a $750 prize.
CES students and staff also made the switch back to reusable utensils, cutting down on single-use waste and helping reduce the volume of trash heading to Vermont’s only landfill.
To wrap up a stellar year of planet-protecting action, CES 5th graders teamed up CSWD for a Trash on the Lawn Day (TOLD, where a day’s worth of trash is collected and sorted to uncover what’s really heading to the landfill. This eye-opening event helps students and staff identify opportunities to improve waste sorting—like separating food scraps and recyclables from trash. Even Burlington School District’s superintendent stopped by to get the 411 on Trash On the Lawn Day.
Because CES has held multiple TOLDs over the years, CSWD has been able to track their progress—and the improvements are impressive.
- Reduced food scraps in the trash by 80%
- 15% less recyclables in the trash
- Dropped the amount of trash generated in a day by 11%
And areas needing a bit of work were also identified.
- 15% of the trash were recyclables and food scraps but that is still below the general average for Vermont.
- Discovered the yogurt cups are #6 plastic and NOT recyclable.
the reasons a TOLD are important.
Trash On the Lawn Day Gallery
But the impact doesn’t stop with competitions and audits. The fifth graders will now review the data and come up with an action plan for improvement. One hot topic: encourage all classrooms to collect the floppy plastic breakfast bags for recycling at local retail stores.
CSWD is proud to partner with schools like Champlain Elementary School that are building a more sustainable future—one action (and battery!) at a time.