THE GREENING OF DAY CAMP

The “Greening” of Beth El Day Camp

Take 250 campers and staff – eat lunch and snacks; throw in lots of water breaks – for 5 days a week – 8 weeks. What do you get? A mountain of trash and food scraps, all headed to an incinerator in Westchester, adding to our climate crisis.

What’s in that mountain?

50 thousand plastic disposable cups; 18 thousand paper plates; 10 thousand plastic bowls; 30 thousand plastic forks, knives, and spoons; Countless thousands of napkins; Food leftovers and scraps That was before 2021. That was before 2021. This past camp season we went 95% “green” – nearly all items being compostable or eliminating the item altogether. This was achieved at a lower cost than before. How? What became of the mountain of “trash”? Plastic cups: Nearly all gone in favor of personal water bottles. Paper plates and napkins: Uncoated paper, which is compostable Plastic bowls: Mostly replaced by paper plates. A small remainder – compostable plant-based bowls and uncoated paper pleated cups (compostable and economical) Utensils: Now compostable - Similar to Kiddush but an appropriate lower grade/cost Food: Leftovers and scraps – ALL compostable

Anything else?

Individual snack bags/wrappers: Disposed in a special TerraCycle box for snack bags. One box all season. TerraCycle collects specific (normally) non-recyclables like these, processes and upcycles into products like outdoor furniture and decking, plastic shipping pallets, etc. Yogurt sleeves: Not compostable or recyclable. Trash.

How is this organized?

Here’s a snippet from the sheet integrating the daily menu with products & handling to achieve this “Green” sustainable environment.

What’s the ancillary benefit here?

Exposing 200 campers – from the teeny 2-year olds to 12-year olds - and all staff to the notion of sustainability and composting every weekday for 40 days. A future article will focus on sustainability as part of STEM at camp.

What about the other 10 months of the year?

Did you know that Beth El’s weekly Shabbat Kiddush is zero-waste? After a COVID hiatus, Kiddush is now back on the table (pun intended). All the tableware and food scraps should be placed in the compost bins. Everything is cycled back into the earth to help new growth. That’s a whole lot better than going to an incineration facility – the traditional destination - pumping more carbon gasses into our environment here in Westchester.

We’re eager for you to join, dispose properly, and make Beth El a shining example of sustainability in action. Alan Greenberg, on behalf of the Green Team