Less Waste at Preschool

The Preschool my oldest attended last year had snack time each day. The snack was always provided by the parents on a rotating weekly schedule. We were to bring a snack food and a snack drink, along with dixie cups for the kids to drink out of.

Now my twins are in Preschool and my mind is all about Zero Waste. I started thinking about snack time and how we provide all these dixie cups each week that end up in the trash - WHAT A WASTE!

With Zero Waste at the top of my brain, I thought, there has to be a solution to this! My oldest brings her own snack to 4K this year - which is a water bottle and almonds/crackers/pretzels, etc. And I thought - Boy, it would be so easy to send my twins with their water bottles too! SOLUTION!!!!

So I wrote an email to our Preschool teachers with my idea:

Hi (Teacher),

I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. My girls are so excited to start Preschool!

I am writing you today because I had a thought/suggestion in regards to snack time. Right now we are using dixie cups to supply drinks to the preschoolers. I understand that there is no time to wash 18 little cups (x2) if morning and afternoon classes are full. At the same time almost 36 cups are being thrown in the trash every day of preschool. That is an estimate of 3,240 dixie cups being tossed in the trash over the course of the school year. 

To help our preschool be a little more environmentally friendly, would you consider asking parents to send their kids to preschool with water in their own reusable water bottles each day (one that they would take back home each day)? This would save on trash and then parents would only be asked to supply the snack for the class.

I think this would be a great opportunity to talk about taking care of our earth with the kids. I would even be happy to come in and talk to the kids about ways we can help the earth stay healthy :)

Let me know your thoughts.
Thanks so much,
Jaime

The day school started one of the teachers approached me and told me she got my email and that they loved my idea. Not only would it save waste, but it would also solve sticky juice spills and multiple runs to the drinking fountain. She said that they are planning on sending a letter home with the parents with the change! HOW TOTALLY AWESOME IS THIS!!!!

Here is the letter they sent home to parents:

Dear Parents,

We have decided to try something new this year. Instead of having our Star of the Week bring a drink with disposable cups, we would like to have each child bring their own water bottle to school each day. The bottle would be available to your child throughout classtime, as well as during snack. One parent pointed out to us that during the course of one school year, we would be discarding 3,240 cups! This is a great opportunity to teach our children about our environment and the little things that we all can do to pitch in. Please be sure to bring the water bottle home with you each day and refill it for the next class day. Also, be sure that the bottle is labeled with your child's name in a place that is easily seen.

Thanks for your support!

Preschool

I am totally pumped about this. I spoke up about something I am truly passionate about and was actually met with a welcoming response! It just shows that sometimes all you have to do is speak up. So many cool things can happen when we stand up and share our passions with others. I have a passion for living healthy (for our bodies and our planet) and living minimally. And I am so excited to continue this journey and share my joy here on my blog and in my community!