MCPS has seen environmental issues take center stage on the list of county-wide issues to be addressed. Recently, the Board of Education has found a set of eco-conscious activists from a very unlikely source: the elementary school playground.

Started by students at Piney Branch Elementary School, the Young Activist Club (YAC) was created by a group of elementary school students intent on removing the wasteful use of Styrofoam lunch trays in their cafeteria. The YAC has self-funded a $10,000 pilot program that will eliminate these environmentally hazardous trays.

Looking for a problem that “students could change at their school, “ the children sought to teach their peers the true meaning of activism, said YAC parent sponsor Brenda Platt. “We wanted to let the kids know how to identify a problem and come up with a solution,” she said.

Starting as a local issue in Takoma Park, the YAC’s no-Styrofoam-trays campaign has quickly become a countywide debate. “This is pretty much a national movement,” said Platt, “Styrofoam is becoming increasingly recognized as a bad material for the environment.”

In addition to styrene’s detrimental effects on the environment, parents have become increasingly concerned with its medical repercussions. According to EPA reports, the styrene that composes Styrofoam is a dangerous neurotoxin with acute and long-lasting effects, particularly on the Central Nervous System. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified styrene as a potential human carcinogen.

The YAC’s pilot program, which calls for the installation of a dishwasher at Piney Branch ES, has faced firm opposition from the Board of Education. Citing the excessive cost of a dishwasher, the Board has concluded that the translation of this pilot program to other schools is economically unfeasible. Kathleen Lazor, Director of the Division of Food and Nutrition Services for MCPS, voiced similar thoughts in an email interview: “MCPS has no plans to move back to dishwashers in the school kitchens. The school kitchens are not designed for the machines (utilities, drainage, and ventilation).” Although the pilot program seeks to be gentler on the environment, Lazor stresses that the new program does have its downfalls: “[…] there would be an issue with dumping additional water with chemicals into the water stream.”

Regarding the county’s assertions of cost, Platt says that the county has included extraneous charges that have inflated the total cost of a dishwasher. The YAC says that the actual cost to install and maintain a dishwasher is only $15,619.20, far less than the county’s estimate. “Given the economic strain in the county,” said Platt, “we want the Board of Education to let us run our pilot and show them how we can actually be saving money.”

Within the past school year RM has received 5,202,000 Polystyrene trays for the cafeteria. With the school administration’s new focus on going green, many students are warming up to the possibility of a Styrofoam-free school. Sophomore Megan Carrasco concedes that though many high school students are apathetic towards helping the environment, “it would overall reduce waste at RM.”

Junior Raynell Cooper, while acknowledging that a Styrofoam-free school would be helpful to the environment, also thinks that such a plan needs to be economically viable: “ I believe that if the financial costs of having the reusable trays are not unreasonable, then the sensible choice would be to use them. The Styrofoam trays are wasteful and hurt the environment.”

Although the pilot program is still underway, YAC member Heather DeMocker encourages students to become more aware of the environment but not to overwhelm themselves in the process. “Take smaller steps,” DeMocker cautions, “and then take the bigger ones.”