Students give green lessons to Amazon employees
December 2, 2010
By Tim Pfarr
Can that go in the recycling bin? Can this be composted? Maybe you should ask the students at Newcastle Elementary School.
- Newcastle Elementary School students Anna Bradley (left) and Grace Moawad (right) drop an item into a compost bin.
Contributed
In 2009, the school became involved with the King County Green Schools program, and in addition to incorporating new recycling and composting practices, it launched the Waste Watchers program, through which students patrol the lunchroom to ensure appropriate container disposal.
On Veterans Day, seven students used their day off from school to visit Amazon’s new campus in Seattle and teach employees the latest recycling and composting tactics. From 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., the Newcastle students joined four other Western Washington elementary school students, spreading themselves around the five disposal stations in the main lunchroom.
As employees threw their scraps into the trash, compost or recycling containers, the students would inform them of what they were doing correctly, as well as what they threw in the trash that could have been composted or recycled.
Of course, items thrown in the trash that were fit for compost or recycle had to be removed.
“Adults would make a mistake and throw everything in the garbage, and the kids were Dumpster diving,” said Chad Elfstrom, the parent who chaperoned the trip. “Just kind of going out and observing, it was funny. It was educational.”
Among the students who attended were Chad Elfstrom’s children, Jake and Taylor Elfstrom, a fourth- and third-grader, respectively, at Newcastle Elementary.
“We had to use these claws that we had to reach down and get the things people had thrown into the wrong bins,” said Jake, 10.
He said getting to maneuver the claws was his favorite part of the experience.
However, the students gave stickers and pencils to those who composted and recycled correctly. Chad Elfstrom estimated the students interacted with between 1,000 and 1,500 employees during the two-hour shift, giving away 20-30 pencils and 50-60 stickers.
He said most the prominent mistake employees made was trashing things fit for compost, such as food scraps, napkins and eating utensils, as Amazon’s forks, spoons and knives are fit for compost.
Chad Elfstrom, a sales consultant with the office furnishing company MRG, has worked with Amazon for the past two years, developing recycling containers for its conference rooms, and he said the idea to have the students visit came from that collaboration with Amazon.
“Amazon is a forward-thinking company,” he said, adding that sustainability is a prominent element of the company’s mission.
When Elfstrom proposed the idea to his sons, they were instantly on board.
To round out the team, the Elfstrom children recruited friends from school and from their soccer team. Another consultant from the Seattle area brought the other four students who participated.
When they arrived, they didn’t need any help instructing the employees.
“They loved it,” Chad Elfstrom said. “They told me they knew how to do this better than I did.”
They rotated through the lunchroom’s disposal stations, but preferred the busiest locations, he said.
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