Schools throwing away cafeteria trays pushes MSW student into action 
Teresa Sue Gee |
May 5, 2009 - Teresa Sue Gee will tell you that working with developmentally disabled children is her passion. But recycling has got to be a close second.
In January, Gee, a student in the Indiana University School of Social Work’s Master’s of Social Work program, began her practicum working with a school social worker at Indianapolis Public School 83, near 42nd Street and Emerson Avenue. It’s been an eye-opening experience.
Gee received her undergraduate degree in psychology last summer and entered the MSW program in the fall of 2008.
“I underestimated their jobs so much,” Gee said of the work load school social workers face. “I thought it was helping kids here and there. It’s so much more than that,” she added.
But it was more than just the work load that caught Gee’s attention.
First, she noticed that while the school had a soda machine, no one was recycling the soft drink cans. Throwing cans in the trash when it could be turned into cash for the school didn’t make sense to her so she started a can recycling program. She did the same for recycling plastic water bottles that were being thrown away, too.
Then one day while eating lunch with students, she noticed stacks of lunch trays and wondered what was happening to them. What she learned about the trays – made out of Styrofoam – which “shocked me, saddened me and made me sick to my stomach,” Gee said.
What Gee discovered was the trays are non-recyclable and not biodegradable. Wondering if there wasn’t a better way, she called around to other elementary schools and discovered they used the same trays, too. Not only did the elementary schools use the trays, but so did the school system’s middle and high schools.
Adding up the number of students, Gee found IPS was throwing out more than 34,000 trays a day or 6.1 million trays a year. “I was so amazed,” Gee said of her findings.
She decided to do some research and quickly found the school system uses the trays because they are the least expensive alternative. The use of the throw-away trays is less expensive than hiring people to clean plastic trays. There are trays that use hard cardboard that could be recycled, but those trays cost $300,000 more to use, Gee found.
While she understood the concern about higher cost, Gee also wondered whether the practice of simply throwing the trays away teaches a child that’s its ok to contribute to a community’s waste stream.
Gee called every place she could think of to see if anyone would recycle the trays and found a person at one recycling company willing to investigate what could be done. In the meantime, the school system’s food service department is continuing to look for alternatives.
But she is so concerned that Gee intends to approach Dr. Eugene White, the IPS superintendent next month at a meeting to make sure he is aware of the tray situation, too.
Before Gee came to the MSW program, she worked as a manager of a flower shop, but decided she wanted to get a job to help people. She worked for two years as a care-taker for developmentally disabled children providing respite care. That’s when she discovered “this was where my heart was.”
After completing a service learning class as an undergraduate, she went to work for the Youth Emergency Services, an agency that deals with abused and neglected children and works closely with the Indiana Department of Child Services. She recently received a promotion to become a crisis counselor.
“I take things to heart,” Gee acknowledged. “I’ve learned that social workers advocate, so why not advocate,” she said of her determination to focus attention on the lunch trays.
This semester at School 83, Gee started a girl’s group where they talk about their fears and expectations about going to middle school and she plans to start a boys group that will focus on recycling issues and the environment.
“What I really want to do is collect a day’s worth of trays, grab some students and build a big yard ornament, maybe a world globe,” to bring attention to the tray issue, she added.,
Gee wants to work on issues involving developmentally disabled children and adoption so she knows that her studies will take her away from School 83. Even so, she vows not to forget about those lunch trays.
“I don’t care how busy I am next year, I will be involved with IPS. I won’t let this rest.”
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