School ‘Green Team’ works with Island grocer to step up campus recycling effort

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By Reporter Staff • January 19, 2010 2:00 pm
Seattle Jewish Day School students return recyclable plastic lunch containers to the Mercer Island Albertsons on a weekly basis. Albertsons provides kosher lunches — packed in plastic containers — for the students three days every week.
Seattle Jewish Day School students return recyclable plastic lunch containers to the Mercer Island Albertsons on a weekly basis. Albertsons provides kosher lunches — packed in plastic containers — for the students three days every week.

The Jewish Day School’s (JDS) green team, Team Yerukim, is working with the Albertsons supermarket on Mercer Island to recycle plastic deli containers.

Three times a week, Albertsons provides kosher lunches — in plastic containers — for JDS students. Since the containers are not recycled in Bellevue, Team Yerukim students approached the Mercer Island Albertsons to see what could be done to reduce or eliminate their usage.

The team is a student-led group comprised of more than two dozen third- through fifth-grade students. Students met with store leadership and arranged to collect, clean and return the lunch containers to Albertsons each week for recycling, as the store sends its plastic to a private company that transforms the used containers into park benches, many of which are placed in front of Albertsons stores.

“This was an easy way to help and fun to do,” said Albertsons store manager John Gillespie. “We were already there, so the plastic packages go right back into the cardboard boxes we use for delivery, and everything is recycled.”

The green team has set up a special collection bin for the plastic containers next to the school’s compost bin, recycling bin and the garbage bin in the school lunchroom. Additionally, Team Yerukim students have volunteered to give up their recess time once a week to manage the recycling stations and ensure that various waste items are placed in the proper bins and to encourage their peers to minimize lunchroom waste.

JDS’ green initiatives and focus on social responsibility is an important facet of the school’s general and Judaics curriculum.

“When God turned to the first human and showed him all that has been created, God reminds Adam of his responsibility to tend and guard the world,” said assistant head of school Rabbi Stuart Light. “Team Yerukim is the JDS way to remind our community that God’s challenge to Adam is as meaningful today as it was back in the Garden of Eden. For Team Yerukim, all roads lead to increased awareness and stewardship of the world that God has given us.”

JDS offers preschool through eighth grade and serves more than 250 children from nearly 30 zip codes in the area. JDS offers small class sizes, extensive academic and extracurricular programs. The facility includes high-tech classrooms and a 10,000-square-foot athletic center. JDS is part of the King County Green School program.

Visit www.jds.org for more information.