Zaragoza SchoolHouse participates in a pilot project in which compost is made from the organic waste generated at lunch or lunchtime to then fertilize its own school gardens.
The Zaragoza City Council has also provided us with all the necessary equipment.
The Environment and Sustainability Service of the Zaragoza City Council has launched a pilot school composting project to promote the circular economy. It involves 8 schools in the city where teachers, kitchen staff and students are learning to make their own compost and use it to fertilize their gardens.
The compost is made from organic waste generated in school kitchens and the leftovers from school lunches, mainly fruit and bread. Therefore, the first step of the program has been to teach the school community what waste is usable and how to separate it correctly.
To this end, the Environment and Sustainability Service has carried out training workshops for teachers and kitchen staff, in which they have also learned about the composting process and the parameters to be controlled, such as temperature and humidity.
The City Council has provided the centers with all the necessary equipment: from the composters and aerators, to the thermometers or the structuring material, consisting of shredded pruning waste provided by Umbela Sociedad Cooperativa. It also tutors them throughout the process.
The Councilor for the Environment, Patricia Cavero explained that with this program 'we seek to involve the entire school community, from school staff and students to families, so that we all begin to familiarize ourselves with the separation of organic waste, its use and the benefits of the circular economy.'. Thus, in addition to helping to generate compost, students have been able to discover the large amount of organic waste that they themselves generate at recess from lunch. For this, in some centers they have weighed it, reaching up to seven kilos per day.
The schools participating in this pilot program are part of the Agroecological School Gardens Network and have been selected by lottery among all those who applied and met the requirements.
This initiative is part of the Sustainable and Healthy Food Strategy and the Zaragoza Climate Change, Air Quality and Health Strategy (ECAZ 3.0 horizon 2030) to address the climate crisis and promote the health of Zaragozans.