HOISINGTON — Hoisington Middle School was notified that they have received a grant for $4,500 to promote and educate students about composting, and they plan to use waste from the lunchroom for that. Students will be trained in waste management with real life and career applications.
“We feel strongly about recycling,” said HMS Principal Pat Reinhardt. The school has already been recycling as much waste as was possible and with the addition of the single stream recycling offered by the city, another piece was put in place.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment awarded grants totaling nearly $83,000 to 27 of the state’s public schools for recycling-related projects.
The grants were awarded for the next school year and will help pay for recycling bins, composting, and programs for handling cafeteria waste and field trips to recycling centers. Students will see firsthand that “everything must go somewhere,” the Commoners Law of Ecology.
The grants are financed with a state fee of $1 on each ton of waste at a landfill.
The six schools receiving the largest grants of $4,500 each were: Erie High School, Hoisington Middle School, Rose Hill High School, Briarwood Elementary School in Prairie Village, Brookwood Elementary School in Leawood and Wyandotte High School in Kansas City.
In addition, the school has written a grant for a green house for the middle school, but they do not know whether they have received that yet. Reinhardt said the science teachers are all on board with growing plants, but they are still in the planning stages of what they would do with the green house.
The principal said that the composting  site will fit into the new Common Core requirements for schools. It also fits in with entrepreneurship, ownership and problem solving.
The school will purchase a large compost container and small ones for the science labs.
“It will be really good for our kids,” Reinhardt said.