Students launch waste-free lunch program in La Quinta

Twin sisters Madeline and Lilli Koch launched the waste-free lunch program this month to reduce the amount of trash their school sends to the landfill.

“We looked at how much trash was going into the landfills and it was a lot,” Lilli Koch said.

It’s part of the fifth-grade IB exhibition at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in La Quinta.

“Students have to find a worldwide problem that they’re concerned about,” said principal Kelly May-Vollmar. “And in addition to presenting their learning they have to find some way to contribute to solving the problem.”

The girls are teaching their classmates to separate trash during lunch into three bins: compost, recycle and trash. They’ve reduced trash from eight barrels a day to one barrel.

“In the beginning, without separating trash we had 200 pounds all going to the landfill and with separating it’s 5 pounds of trash. Ninety percent of what used to be trash is compost,” said Lilli Koch.

Now the students need the city and Burrtec’s help to recycle the compost.

“They took it upon themselves to schedule with the La Quinta City Council and the mayor and spent some time talking about La Quinta’s partnership with Burrtec in recycling compost,” said May-Vollmar.

The school plans to keep Lilli and Madeline’s project going by building a permanent recycling station this summer.

“We’re hoping that other schools in the valley will follow us in this lead,” said Lilli Koch.