NEWS
New Red Trays Help Lunch Lines Go Green
In Chatham High School’s cafeteria, lunch trays no longer end up in the trash as they had in the past, but are instead heading back to the kitchen. That is because, new this school year, the CHS cafeteria has replaced the disposable polystyrene trays it had been using with new washable plastic trays.
“The reusable trays will provide a cost savings overtime, because we no longer need to continually purchase disposable trays for the High School,” said Chatham Central School District food service supervisor Barbara Murray. “And, of course, there is the green benefit of the cafeteria producing less waste, which is something our students had been asking for.”
The switch to reusable trays was made possible with the installation of a dishwashing machine in the High School kitchen over the summer, allowing cafeteria staff a practical means to clean and reuse the literally hundreds of trays students use each day over the course of breakfast and lunch. Installing the new dishwasher was the final component of a larger capital improvement project approved by District residents in 2010 and largely completed in 2011.