How Schools Make Dining Sustainable and How You Can Do Your Part

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Cutting-edge cafeteria facilities are often touted as a selling point for schools but as well as making sure bellies are full, cafeterias can also play a key role in a school’s sustainability commitments. The types of accessible, community-led initiatives that can be put in place in cafeterias are a great way to get kids engaged with sustainability and foster positive habits for life. We talked to a couple of Beijing schools about how they are making their school dining more sustainable.

Changing Habits, One Meal at a Time

Long recognized as a healthy diet choice, reducing our consumption of animal products is now known to have a positive environmental impact. Many schools in Beijing are getting in on the action, whether by adding plant-based options to the menu or through specific events such as Meat-Free Monday. Matthew Yamatin, sustainability manager at the International School of Beijing (ISB), told Jingkids that in 2019, their students and staff worked with Sodexo food services to dedicate one of their four main serving lines to a vegetarian option. With more and more people switching to plant-based ways of eating — in a survey of students and staff, ISB found that around 10% follow a vegetarian or vegan diet — schools can’t afford to ignore this trend.

In fact, for many schools, reducing the quantity of animal products served in the cafeteria often comes as part of a suite of food sustainability goals. “Eat local and ‘eat seasonal’ has been our food program’s philosophy [for many] years,” Jennifer Yeh, operations manager overseeing food service at Daystar Academy's Beigao campus, tells us. They source much of their fresh produce direct from farmers, many of whom are vendors at the popular Beijing Farmers’ Market events, and where they offer plant-based options, they stick to making dishes from scratch rather than using processed meat substitutes.

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Say “No” to Single-Use Plastics

We all know that we should reduce our consumption of single-use plastics, and schools are no exception. For example, in 2019, ISB eliminated single-use plastic bottles, straws, stirrers, and utensils from the food service operations — they now use paper straws and metal utensils. They also replaced single-use coffee cups with durable ceramic mugs. There is a RMB 2 fee for parents needing a coffee to go, the proceeds of which go to student-centered environmental projects. Daystar’s plastic reduction efforts also extend to parents. When the school holds public events that involve food, parents are encouraged to bring their own utensils or can purchase biodegradable utensils if they forget.

Clean Plates Mean Reduced Waste

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year, almost a third of all food produced for human consumption. A 2015 report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences suggested that in China alone, the amount of food wasted every year could feed 30-50 million people. Since then, Chinese president Xi Jinping has made food waste the target of an ongoing national campaign, doubling down in 2020 after describing the amount of food wasted in the country as “shocking and distressing.” Many schools have joined in with “clean plate” campaigns that encourage responsible eating habits.

Yeh notes that food waste has always been a focus of Daystar’s food program. “We offer two main dishes, one Chinese, one Western,… every day. Students are welcome to refill their plates as many times as they want; however, each time, only one main dish will be served,” she explains. “We want students to have the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate the food on its own. By doing so, students tend to ask for smaller quantities as they often go back for a second or third serving with a different entrée choice.”

The cafeteria environment itself can contribute to reducing food waste; by making the cafeteria a pleasant space to eat and giving kids sufficient time to enjoy their food, they are less likely to waste it. At ISB, for example, they recently added sound-dampening panels to the ceiling in the cafeteria to make it easier for students to hear one another and redesigned the south-facing wall to allow more natural light into the space.

Sustainability Starts at Home


Not every child eats school lunches, but that doesn’t necessarily mean missing out on making sustainable contributions — you can do your bit even if you are bringing lunches from home.

• Start with small changes such as sending kids to school with a refillable water bottle instead of bottled or boxed drinks (most Beijing schools encourage this anyway).

• Swap out plastic wrap or sandwich bags for reusable beeswax food wraps, which can be bought from The Bulk House or from Taobao – search for “蜂蜡保鲜布 fēnglà bǎoxiān bù.”

• Buy fruit and vegetables loose from local markets rather than pre-wrapped from the supermarket.

• Try your hand at making homemade versions of popular packaged treats.

• Get kids involved in shopping for ingredients and making lunches.

• Explain what you are doing and why, which will foster good habits from an early age.


 


What Can Kids Do?

Keystone Academy's Year 4 class looked at their school life and found a few different ways that students can help, which students Amy and Jeffrey described in detail to a live audience at the Global Climate Change webinar on November 5, 2020.

• Meatless Monday in the cafeteria because factory farming counts for 1/3 of carbon emissions annually.

• Check that all classrooms have paper recycling bins next to printers and trash receptacles.

• Their school has a greenhouse and gardens, where students are able to see how the cycle of life works in real-time: plants feed fish, fish feed plants, they can create compost to help feed their gardens, which in turn cultivates worms in compost to feed the fish.

• Many teachers switched to using Seesaw, Padlet, and Microsoft Teams to reduce paper consumption.

• They are in the process of researching the viability of installing solar panels on school roofs, working with administrations across the departments to see how feasible it is.

• Students also shared how they felt about food wastage, and are still working to find solutions to this problem.

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Images: Unsplash

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