Barton's Big Idea All About ROT

Whatever you think of some of Minneapolis Public Schools' ideas, this is one that everyone can agree is riddled with ROT.

That's ROT, as in Reuse Our Trash, a campaign the school district rolled out a few years ago to increase recycling, composting, and energy conservation across its schools.

Four years ago—around the same time the district started its ROT program—five parents decided they wanted to start a composting system for school lunches. Luckily, they had the time to put it together, and on Friday, their work was rewarded with a $5,000 prize from the Jeffers Foundation at an early-morning all-school meeting.

While about half of Minneapolis' public schools have an organized composting and recycling program, Barton's solution has helped reduce their trash by around 200 pounds per week, Barton parent Jennifer Bennett told Patch. Around 50 percent of Barton's trash is composted into industrial compost, she added—used as fill in construction projects, but not suitable for agriculture—the highest of any Minneapolis public school.

Those are impressive numbers, even when you don't consider that Barton doesn't have a cafeteria, so kids eat in their classrooms.

To make sure every class was participating, 30 parent volunteers came in regularly to teach students what could be recycled, what could be composted, and what had to be thrown out. They had to monitor seven different trash triage stations throughout the building over its four lunch periods, but far from needing reminders, Bennet said even the youngest Barton students have enthusiastically joined in. Some now stand guard over the trash barrels on "ROT duty," armed with long grabbing devices that help them grab an improperly sorted item before its buried by incoming waste.

The prize, Bennett said, will go into the Barton Foundation, which helps pay for some music and art programs at the school.