Sustainability isn’t a word most students hear day-to-day in elementary, middle or high school. But in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, it is.

The school district won two awards this past month: one from the US Green Building Council and another from the National Recycling Coalition for its compost separation program.

“It’s all about habit. And all that schools are fundamentally designed for is to educate students on things they will need to know now and later in life,” said Dan Schnitzer, Sustainability Coordinator for CHCCS.

Schnitzer said most of the composting program responsibility falls on the students of the different schools.

“I’m only one person who can organize information, get the information out there and help make the changes happen,” he said, “But it really requires the people on the ground.”

Dan Schnitzer spoke last week with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.

 

Every school in the district has different bins in the cafeteria labeled: recycle, land fill, compost and liquid. Schnitzer said students learn how to sustainably dispose of their lunch waste by asking different questions.

“What goes where? Why? Oh, I didn’t know this was compostable. And so it opens up the opportunity to educate further by sparking their interest.”

After two years of the program’s implementation, it’s diverted about half a million pounds of waste from the local landfill.

But that’s not the only program Schnitzer oversees. He said his job is making a financial, economic and environmental impact throughout other projects too. One of those is energy management.

He said most of this project is finding cheap, yet sustainable energy alternatives for schools, but it’s also about teaching the students what this means.

“We’re showing kids through very kinesthetic learning what energy efficiency means,” Schnitzer said.

He has in the past done projects with students that demonstrate the energy-saving difference between LED light bulbs and CFL and halogen ones. Changing energy practices for CHCCS has saved the district $1.4 million so far.

Schnitzer said this is money they can then go back and spend on the students.

“So it’s really just taking these ideas, expanding them correctly but quickly,” he said. “And then using all of them as learning tools for all of our students.”

Schnitzer is also currently overseeing projects such as an energy managers forum in conjunction with Durham County. He is also constructing a landscaping program that will create healthy ecosystems and habitats around CHCCS.