Two weeks ago, my friends and I started a green living campaign at the school cafeteria. In our school, we pay for our food in advance (each semester). So a lot of students do not feel guilty about the food they leave behind, even though they are wasting away a lot of money. On top of that, most of us are seriously disgusted of our cafeteria menus. Last year, we had a queer red sauce that tasted like the mixture of tomato sauce, salsa sauce, chili sauce, hot pepper? something that was spicy, sticky, gooey, sweet, old, and cold. We have grilled fish with pink strawberry sauce? bread so hard that it feels like brick? so on and so far. You get the feeling. Simply unpalatable.

We started our campaign in two dimensions – first by helping improve the quality of school food, and second by making students understand the urgency of the food waste issue. To begin with, our school decided to reflect our preference for school menus. We had votes and check-lists that gave every student the opportunity to speak for themselves. My friends and I identified what the average student prefers the most. Based on our results, we found out that there were certain menus that all students commonly disliked, and some menus that differed from time to time. For example, almost half of the school?s sweet & spicy sauces were quite unpopular. At the same time, while some students enjoyed spaghetti, others did not. After more research, we found out that this was because of the variables – obscurity and instability. Our school spaghetti sauce is too bland and without salt – it feels like chewing on raw noodles. Still, some students are used to this taste because of their household environments. In addition, the texture of the noodles are too unstable. Sometimes, we have noodles that are too thick, and other times, they are too long.

After collecting these results, we recorded and took pictures of students leaving food waste. For every student passing by the cafeteria waste box, we took a picture of his/her plate. Soon, we were able to collect over a hundred pictures – actual data portraying the intensity of the problem. When we analyzed the leftover plates, we were able to conclude that students generally create a lot of food waste. We conducted the experiment by categorizing each student within five levels. 1- Almost no food waste at all, 2 – a little food waste, 3 – normal, 4 – a lot of food waste, 5 – almost everything left. More than 60% of the students in our school were categorized as number 4, 35% as number 3, and the rest as 2 or 5. Also, most students tended to leave vegetables or spiced foods behind? and they usually finished up their deserts.

The initial problem was that school food was simply too inedible, but aside from that, the bigger problem was that everyone was so careless about food waste. Most students scooped up more food from the cafeteria salad bar than they could manage, and ended up leaving more than 40% of the food behind. Based on this, we started campaigning right away.

The first step was telling the students the significance of the issue. We put up posters all around the cafeteria, so that everyone could see them while they passed by. One poster contained the picture of a coffin with French fries, saying that ?the last wish was to be eaten.? A lot of the students stopped by to look at the poster. A few students stayed in front of the poster for several minutes to think about the matter. Indeed, the poster had provoked them. Another poster had the words ?Don?t feed your bin!? and a picture of a trashcan full of food waste – fish bones, banana peels? We put this picture up high where the students disposed their food waste, to make them think about their actions for the last time. A lot of students were exposed to this poster – I saw one student pointing at his friend?s full plate. After looking at the poster, he was playfully scolding his friend for leaving all the food behind. We had researched environment websites to find the first two posters, but for the last one? It was a different story. With the help of a computer program, I designed a poster with the words ?KEEP CALM AND EAT FOOD? on it. On the background, I put on a photo displaying an array of colorful vegetables.

We constantly recorded and took pictures of everyone?s plates. When we first started recording the day?s food waste, most students left over half of their food uneaten. The next day, however, significantly less students started throwing away their food. At that time, we had not even put up the posters, or even told them to stop leaving food waste. Yet, they had changed their behavior just because we were recording and analyzing their data. They had felt a sense of guilt? when they were being watched upon.

After the poster campaign took place, the students began to take a step back and think about the matter for another moment. Before, everyone used to eat lunch as fast as they could and ran out the enjoy recess. However, after the campaign, we could find more students eating slower – they were spending time at the cafeteria finishing the last of their food. The cafeteria had become a room for socialization as well as environment preservation.

Many of our posters contained information about climate change and energy waste. We went around classrooms to inform students about the impacts that food waste could have on the environment. It takes a year to plant, tend, water, care for, and harvest a single grain of rice? but only a few seconds to feed it to the bin. The students started to understand that food waste was a serious problem, as well as a great waste of energy and effort.

School food started to improve as well. After a few weeks, now that students were leaving less food behind, the school now had a motivation to cook better food. We started to have better menus? and appropriate sauces fit for those menus.

At the end, it comes down to the simple fact that we should take a step back and look at what we are made up of. When we peer into the food we have eaten, we will be able to understand how ignorant we have been about the environment. Being choosy about what we eat is harmful for our own bodies, and it is even more destructive to the planet itself. Before the campaign, I understood the severity of the issue deep within my heart – but only within my heart. I knew, but I did not ?do.? True, I cared more about the environment than anyone, but sometimes, as I confess, it is not that easy to devour an -artificial strawberry sauce coated grilled fish with mayonnaise sauce- or -a bowl of pasta half filled with water-? Yet, when I began informing everyone about the dangers of food waste, I also felt guilty about the way I sometimes fed the bin with school food. If I was going to make the others do this, I was going to have to do it first. After all, it had been my idea to start to campaign project.