Comments Document

FACS (Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions) supports HB166. The largest problem trying to expand composting in Virginia schools is the lack of information on how to do it – what works, and what doesn’t. There are many school systems across the nation that are composting, but each Virginia school official that wants to compost must figure out how to do it on their own. We need an organized approach. There is not a one-size-fits-all method that will work for everyone. DEQ should be the clearinghouse for information on what works around the nation, what works currently in Virginia and what is being evaluated or should be tested. FACS has been asking Fairfax County Schools to develop a compost diversion program for their schools. The County’s own audit (JET report) found compostable food was 30% of the total trash thrown away in the trash dumpsters. There was more compost than trash. FACS is a Virginian faith-based organization of 2,000+ members from over 200 faith communities. My letter, in PDF format, is attached. Thanks.

I support this important bill. Promoting schools to implement a composting program will provide an educational opportunity for students to learn about its benefits and ways they can use these techniques in their daily lives, but academic opportunities to learn of more advance ways for waste Managment. Schools could also lower costs of waste removal and by using compost material to enhance the soil and plant quality in school landscapes and gardens.

Dear delegate friends, Guidance and development of procedures at the division level would be of tremendous help to the rapidly growing number of schools, clubs and parent groups building gardens and mini-farms to create and demonstrate sustainable communities. They take care of garbage the school produces instead of burying it in landfills and also grow food for families and students, or the kitchens (both the lunch and breakfast kitchens and also the Culinary Arts classes). I've been an educator for over 40 years, thirty of them as a full-time licensed teacher here in Virginia. When I was a teacher of students eligible in the categories of Emotional Disabilities, Learning Disabilities and Other Health Impaired (for thirteen years in Virginia), one class project was always to design, develop and maintain a medium-size garden to grow vegetables for school and families. As a Latin teacher in the state for seventeen years, the students or Latin Honor Society usually undertook a project to develop a small biological area for teaching the school community about scientific names, binomial nomenclature and words derived from Latin. Composting was sometimes part of the project. We always had to cobble together permissions, authorizations and access to kitchen garbage because there was no guidance (at first) on this sort of thing. As a PTA advocacy chair I find more and more that PTAs are developing gardens for sustainable agriculture and communities, which of course involves composting. Again, consistent guidance developed would multiply the ease of access of such projects and increase the number of them in the state. Thank you for reading, Robert Rigby, Jr. Fairfax County, Virginia