By: Jada Pan, Staff Writer
The sale of plastic water bottles in the cafeteria and lunch carts may soon be a thing of the past, not just at Mills but across San Mateo High School District schools. A student-led petition supported by the SMUHSD Sustainability Committee aims to effectively reduce plastic waste and encourage sustainable habits.
This initiative, originally proposed by Burlingame High students to the Sustainability Committee, has now become a district-wide effort to promote sustainability. If the petition proves to be successful, then the students would present their findings before the Board of Trustees. The policy would not only ban the sale of plastic bottles but also foster environmental consciousness in both staff and students as they shift to better alternatives.
Driven by concerns over plastic pollution and waste, students brought this idea to the Sustainability Committee. I had the opportunity to interview Lindsay Danehower, who serves as the Mills site sustainability facilitator and member of the committee. She shared the past efforts of the committee regarding categorizing waste.
“We’ve purchased the tri-bins for each campus to come up to date with current laws and to provide a more uniform, professional-looking system to put in place, in anticipation of our school community becoming better at sorting their waste and diverting more waste away from the landfills.”
Now with the initiative, the committee shifts towards waste reduction. Plastic water bottles contribute significantly to waste and pollution in our schools and communities. According to the petition, the sale of plastic water bottles on SMUHSD campuses adds to the “35 million tons of plastic the United States produces per year,” while only nine percent is recycled. The proposed ban directly addresses this issue by reducing the district’s contribution to these numbers.
However, this initiative has been met with some concerns about its possible impacts on students. At Mills, Ms. Danehower is exploring alternatives to single-use bottles, including reusable bottles brought from home, PATH water bottles, and boxed water. Ms. Danehower also addressed the concern of students being able to afford water due to its financial costs.
A potential alternative, PATH water bottles, are recyclable and made of aluminum, specifically designed to be reused. “If a student bought a path water bottle, they could theoretically then make that their water bottle,” said Ms. Danehower.
She showed me the rows of water bottles left in the lost and found, most of them from well-known brands such as Yeti and Hydroflask. “There’s also plenty of students who clearly can afford one water bottle and to lose it and buy another one,” said Ms. Danehower.
Normally, these would have been donated to Goodwill after multiple weeks of being unclaimed. In an effort to put these to use, Ms. Danehower shared that she could put them in a dishwasher to clean them, and give those out to students that need them. “Any students that need a bottle, we’re going to have the solution to get them one.”
The district emphasizes that the filtered water available at the refill stations is of high quality. These investments have been made to ensure students have access to safe and clean drinking water. Water fountains are also located on campus for students who did not bring their reusable bottles.
As the Sustainability Committee is relatively newer than the other ones in the district, they hope to tackle even more issues in the future beyond single-use plastics. For now, the ban is primarily focused on the sale of plastic water bottles in the cafeterias, not yet extending to vending machines.
If the petition is a success, the students will present the petition and its data to the Board of Trustees in April. If the board approves the ban, it will become a district-wide policy.
“It’s nice to see students taking the initiative on tackling issues within their community that they feel passionate about,” said Ms. Danehower.
To get involved in this initiative, scan the QR code on the flyers found throughout the school and sign the petition.
