North Andover Public School
In 2018, the North Andover Public School District was awarded a Sustainable Materials Recovery Program (SMRP) Municipal/Regional Grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP).
The grant allowed the District to procure signage and other equipment needed to implement waste diversion sorting stations in cafeterias across the district.
Today with the direct oversight of a Compost Champion, the district diverst approximately 700 pounds of food scraps and compostable materials, as well as 100 pounds of liquids per day, totalling over 70 tons per year.
🌎 Over 150,000 pounds diverted annually
That’s 70+ tons kept out of disposal every year.
The District’s Impact: A Quick Snapshot
- Daily diversion: approximately 700 pounds of food scraps and compostables district-wide.
- Liquids: approximately 100 pounds of liquids diverted per day using 5-gallon pour-off buckets at each school.
- Trash reduction: about 50 fewer trash bags each week (over 1,800 bags saved annually), resulting in lighter workloads with reduced risk of injury for custodial staff.
- Share tables: active at elementary schools to redirect uneaten food and foster a sense of community.
- Student leadership: students act as Green Team volunteers at lunch, with ongoing training and refreshers each fall, and meetings before/after school to share ideas.
- Garden growth: The compost produced from food scraps is returned to school gardens as a soil amendment from Bootstrap Compost, enriching the land and the school’s gardens.
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North Andover Public Schools
Share Tables: Prevent Wasted Food, Build Community
North Adover elementary schools use share tables at the end od the sorting line, where students can leave allowable, unopened cafeteria items such as unpeeled oranges that they choose not to eat. Students are encouraged to take from the share table if they are still hungry, helping ensure that good food is eaten rather than wasted. In som cases, cafeteria staff can also reclaim unopened items to safely serve again, further reducing unnecessary disposal.
In previous years, parents organized weekly donations of additional surplus food to a clocal shelter. They are now working to revive this effort to help address growing food insecurity in the community and sorrounding areas.
North Andover’s approach to food waste diversion is practical, hands-on, and built to scale, adapting over time to meet the evolving needs of the school district.
Joanna
Grean Team leaderKey Program Features
The school administration actively supports food scrap separation in the cafeteria. This includes maintaining a dedicated coordinator, known as the Compost Champion, a role held by Joanna O’Connell, contracting with Bootstrap Compost for processing, and ensuring GreenTeam leaders have time to support the program. The administration also encourages students leadership apportunities across all schools.
Grean Team leaders recruit and manage students volunteers, teaching them how to serve as sorting station leaders. Bootstrap Compost then processes the colected food scraps into soil.
Because the system cannot handle contaminants such s ketchup packets, plastics, and other non-certified compostable items, effective training is essential to the program’s success.
