In school cafeterias, kids fight Michigan's food waste problems

Michigan schools are expanding student-led composting programs that divert cafeteria waste from landfills and turn it into soil
Michigan has set a goal to halve food waste by 2030 through state climate policy, but lawmakers have not allocated funding for composting programs
Landfilled food waste takes up limited space and leeches harmful methane gas

Unlike most fourth-graders, AJ Beaudion likes to leave recess five minutes early.

It’s part of his job.

At 9 years old, Beaudion is the composting manager at Hayes Elementary School in Livonia. His responsibilities include arriving on time during kindergarten through fourth-grade lunch to help sort the food waste, stacking compostable trays and placing them into bins destined for an offsite facility where they’ll be turned into rich soil.

“It’s important to help the Earth,” said Beaudion.

An unknown number of schools across Michigan have, like Hayes, taken up composting initiatives. But coalitions of education and anti-food waste groups, including Make Food Not Waste and the Detroit Food Policy Council, want to see more.

They’ve begun lobbying state legislators in hopes of securing $3 million for a pilot grant program that would allow schools across the state to replicate the program at Hayes Elementary.

After an unsuccessful attempt to secure funding for the fiscal year that starts in October, they’re starting conversations early in hopes of succeeding next year.

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“If you get kids young learning about these things and thinking about what happens when they are done with the food on their plate, you’re teaching them to reduce waste and think about how things can be repurposed instead of going to a landfill,” said Amy Kuras, the program manager at Food Policy Council

According to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Michiganders landfill up to 2 million tons of food waste each year — nearly a fifth of all waste sent to municipal landfills.

Michigan’s K-12 schools, which dole out millions of meals each day, contributed 17,200 tons in 2024.

Beyond taking up limited space, landfilled food contributes to climate change by breaking down to produce methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Kids put food waste into bins while a teacher looks on — Hayes Elementary School third-graders Brooklynn Schaefer and Bella Neely roll filled food waste bins to a compost container while fourth-grader AJ Beaudion helps by holding the lid open under the supervision of art teacher Christine Lakatos. (Isabella Figueroa Nogueira/Bridge Michigan)

Nationwide, food waste sent to landfills emits 270 million metric tons of greenhouse gases — an impact equivalent to putting 24 million more gas-powered cars on the road, according to EGLE.

The Michigan Healthy Climate Plan calls for the state to cut food waste in half by 2030, with strategies ranging from reducing school cafeteria waste to promoting curbside compost pickup programs, drop-off locations and collection sites for businesses.

A nascent effort

In school cafeterias across the state, uneaten meals and discarded packaging fill trash cans quickly, turning lunch periods into an environmental liability.

Lunchtime at Hayes Elementary looks different.

There, students end their lunch period with a stop at waste disposal stations overseen by student volunteers like Beaudion.

The volunteers act as traffic directors, helping their peers sort each waste item into the correct bin: A banana peel is placed into a composting bucket while the sticker on the peel becomes trash.

“We get to save our Mother Nature, and there is a lot of plastic,” fourth-grader Mustafa Yakliftin told Bridge Michigan as he was finishing up his lunch. “Composting saves all our waste. Plastic takes more than 300 years to go away.”

Hayes is one of several Michigan schools, from metro Detroit to Genesee County, that have begun compost cafeteria scraps.

But with $3 million, Kuras said, the state could help more schools pay for compost bins, educational materials, staff training and infrastructure needed to set up their own composting programs.

She acknowledged the idea may be a tough sell as lawmakers contend with shrinking state revenue.

“Funds are tight and there are a lot of competing priorities in the Legislature,” she said.

State Budget Office spokesperson Lauren Leeds said none of the draft budgets proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or the state House or state Senate include funding for food waste diversion initiatives.

Spokespeople for state Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, the Senate budget chair, declined to comment, while House Republicans spokesperson Gideon D’Assandro and state Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, the House budget chair, did not respond to questions from Bridge Michigan. Spokespeople for Whitmer redirected Bridge to the State Budget Office.

Composting in action

Hayes Elementary’s composting program began with a waste audit in 2016.

“We analyzed only one bag of trash and the small group of kids that I got together to do this waste audit could see that one bite was taken out of the middle of a grilled cheese sandwich and they just thought that was ridiculous,” said Christine Lakatos, an art teacher and Green Team leader at Hayes Elementary.

So Lakatos and her students sought to do something about it. The school contracted with a company called My Green Michigan to build a composting program that now diverts nearly 10,000 pounds of cafeteria food scraps annually.

Sixty miles north, Davison Community School District runs a similar program in four of the district’s nine schools, said Food Services Director Jennifer Lutze.

Davison administrators used excess money in the district’s food service fund to purchase stainless steel trays and reusable sporks, a change that reduced waste and saved roughly $11,000.

James Emmerling, the district’s science and health coordinator, said the district used the savings to fund its composting program, which has diverted an estimated 23 tons of food waste from landfills this year.

“If you can eat it, it can go in there,” Lutze said of the bins that have become a staple in participating cafeterias.

Sold as a soil amendment to landscape supply companies Hammond Farms and Spurt, the composted material improves overall soil properties and creates a better environment for root growth.

Implementing those systems is not always straightforward, said Lakatos. Schools must balance waste reduction goals with operational realities like busy lunch schedules and limited staffing and funds.

But it’s worth the effort, Lakatos said, because it reduces waste while instilling sustainable habits that students carry into adulthood.

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