We're in the Business of Feeding Kids, Not Landfills: Rethinking Food Waste and Composting in School Cafeterias

9 hours ago

7 min read

How Rust Belt Riders is helping Northeast Ohio schools turn food scraps into healthier soil, lower waste costs, and powerful learning opportunities.

What's in your cafeteria trash?

It's a question most school nutrition professionals probably don't spend much time thinking about. After all, there's food to prepare, students to feed, menus to manage, and a hundred other things competing for attention.

But what if what's going into the trash could actually become something valuable?

Two hosts sit with microphones in a studio lounge beneath a Pisanick Partners LLC screen, smiling beside a fruit bowl.

On a recent episode of NutriSmart SNAX, host Maureen Pisanick sat down with Nolan from Rust Belt Riders, a Northeast Ohio organization helping schools and communities rethink food waste through composting.

Their conversation revealed something important: sustainability in school nutrition doesn't have to be complicated, expensive, or time-consuming. Sometimes, it starts with simply changing where you put your food scraps.

And the results can be pretty remarkable.

From Cafeteria Scraps to Thousands of Pounds of Impact

When we talk about food waste in schools, the numbers can be difficult to visualize. But Rust Belt Riders is demonstrating just how much of a difference individual school communities can make.

Currently working with approximately 30 schools across Northeast Ohio, from early childhood education through universities, Rust Belt Riders is helping institutions divert thousands of pounds of food waste from landfills through school cafeteria composting.

Consider some of these results from the 2025–2026 school year:

School	Food Waste Diverted
Shaker Heights (5 elementary schools)	Over 12,000 lbs
Brecksville-Broadview Heights Schools	Over 9,500 lbs
Magnificat High School	Over 16,000 lbs
Combined total	Over 37,500 lbs

That's more than 18 tons of food scraps diverted from landfills by these school partners alone!

And perhaps most impressive is Magnificat High School, a single all-girls Catholic high school on Cleveland's west side, diverting more than 16,000 pounds.

These numbers tell a bigger story. Whether you're managing one cafeteria or an entire district, meaningful sustainability efforts are possible.

The key is finding a system that works for your operation.

Sustainability Can Actually Save Schools Money

Let's talk about something every school nutrition director understands: the budget.

Sustainability initiatives sometimes get labeled as additional expenses. Another program. Another responsibility. Another line item.

But composting can potentially do the opposite.

During her years as a school food service director in Hudson, Ohio, Maureen implemented food scrap collection practices that helped reduce the district's trash removal costs.

By separating food scraps from traditional waste, schools may be able to reduce the volume of material requiring conventional trash disposal.

That's an opportunity worth exploring.

Of course, the actual financial benefit depends on factors such as collection fees, waste hauling contracts, and the amount of material diverted.

But imagine being able to tell your administration that you're reducing landfill waste, creating environmental learning opportunities, and potentially lowering operating expenses.

That's sustainability meeting smart school nutrition management.

Composting Doesn't Have to Mean More Work for Cafeteria Staff

One of the biggest challenges facing school nutrition operations isn't a lack of good ideas.

It's time.

Kitchen teams are already balancing meal preparation, service, cleaning, compliance, and countless other responsibilities. Introducing another process can sound overwhelming.

Nolan offered a refreshing perspective.

Composting doesn't necessarily require adding another complicated step to the workday. Instead, it's often about adjusting an existing process.

Food scraps are already being discarded. Composting simply redirects those scraps into a different collection stream.

Rust Belt Riders helps schools make that transition through:

Initial site visits and operational consultations
Staff onboarding and training
Clearly identified collection containers
Guidelines explaining which materials can be composted
Reliable collection services
Educational presentations for students and school communities

Schools can begin with pre-consumer food waste, such as scraps generated during meal preparation, or post-consumer food waste, including unfinished food collected after students eat.

The right approach depends on the school's kitchen, staffing, available space, and daily routines.

The takeaway? Start with what makes sense for your operation, rather than trying to change everything overnight.

The Cafeteria Is More Than a Place to Eat. It's a Classroom.

At Pisanick Partners, we frequently talk about making the cafeteria an extension of the classroom.

Nutrition education shouldn't stop when students leave their desks. The cafeteria offers opportunities to teach lessons about food, agriculture, health, and environmental responsibility.

Composting is a perfect example.

Students can see firsthand what happens to the food they don't eat. They can learn that food scraps aren't necessarily the end of the story, but the beginning of something new.

And those lessons don't always stay at school.

As Nolan explained, creating continuity between school and home is one of the most valuable outcomes of school composting programs.

When students learn to separate food scraps at school, they may encourage their families to adopt similar habits at home.

Sometimes, the students become the teachers.

Maureen recalled her years as a school nutrition director when fourth- and fifth-grade students would question the use of Styrofoam trays and other disposable materials.

Those students weren't just learning about environmental responsibility. They were advocating for change.

Their voices helped push conversations about transitioning toward more environmentally responsible cafeteria supplies.

Students aren't just consumers of school meals. They're future stewards of the communities we serve.

And when we give them the opportunity to participate in meaningful change, they often rise to the occasion.

Connecting Composting to Farm to School and Local Food

One of the most exciting opportunities discussed during the podcast was the connection between composting and regional food systems.

Think about the journey of a locally grown tomato.

A farmer grows it in Northeast Ohio soil. The tomato is harvested and delivered to a school cafeteria.

Kitchen staff prepare it for students, and the tomato becomes part of a nutritious school meal.

But what happens to the scraps?

Traditionally, those scraps might end up in a landfill.

With composting, they can instead become part of a process that produces nutrient-rich soil.

That soil can then support future growing seasons.

It's a powerful example of how schools can participate in a more circular, resilient regional food system.

And it's particularly relevant as school nutrition programs explore more scratch cooking, fresh produce, and locally sourced ingredients.

More fresh food preparation can also mean more peels, stems, cores, and other organic scraps.

Rather than viewing those materials solely as waste, composting offers an opportunity to turn them into a resource.

Farm to School shouldn't just be about where our food comes from. It can also be about where our food scraps go.

Putting Sustainability Into Practice at Innovation Academy 2026

We believe meaningful innovation requires action.

That's why sustainability wasn't just a conversation at our 2026 Innovation Academy. It was something we worked to incorporate into the event itself.

With the support of Rust Belt Riders, we set a goal of making Innovation Academy a zero-food-waste event.

And that commitment extends beyond one day.

Our culinary training sessions, recipe demonstrations, student taste tests, and professional development programs all generate food scraps.

By incorporating composting into these activities, we're working to model the same practices we encourage schools to consider.

It's one thing to talk about sustainability.

It's another to put collection bins in place, educate participants, and build responsible food waste management into your own operations.

That's how ideas begin turning into impact.

Five Ways to Start Composting in Your School Cafeteria

Interested in bringing composting to your school nutrition program? You don't need to launch a districtwide initiative tomorrow.

Start with a few manageable steps.

1. Take a look at your trash.

Spend a few days observing what gets discarded during food preparation and meal service. Are you throwing away significant amounts of fruit and vegetable scraps? What about unfinished food from student trays?

Understanding your waste stream is the first step.

2. Identify your champions.

Your food service director, kitchen staff, teachers, administrators, students, or even a passionate PTA member could help lead the effort.

You might be surprised who wants to get involved.

3. Start with one location or process.

Consider collecting preparation scraps in one kitchen before expanding to post-consumer waste collection.

A successful pilot can help demonstrate what's possible.

4. Bring students into the conversation.

Use composting as an opportunity to teach about soil health, local agriculture, and responsible resource management.

The more students understand the purpose, the more meaningful their participation becomes.

5. Measure and celebrate your impact.

Track the pounds of food scraps diverted, evaluate changes in waste removal expenses, and share the results with your school community.

Those numbers can become powerful evidence of the program's success.

Small Actions. Big Impact.

Toward the end of the podcast, Maureen asked Nolan to share one action listeners could take immediately.

His message was simple: start small and become more mindful of what happens to your food scraps.

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by large environmental challenges. But meaningful change doesn't always require a massive initiative.

It can begin with one kitchen.

One collection bin.

One group of students learning a new habit.

And one school community deciding that food scraps deserve a better destination than the landfill.

At Pisanick Partners, we believe school nutrition programs have a tremendous opportunity to lead these conversations.

We're already nourishing students. We're already supporting local agriculture. We're already teaching lifelong habits around food.

Why not take the next step and help nourish the soil, too?

Because when we think beyond the lunch tray, we're not just feeding kids today.

We're helping build healthier, more resilient communities for tomorrow.

Listen to the Conversation on NutriSmart SNAX

Want to learn more about how school composting works in practice?

Listen to our conversation with Nolan from Rust Belt Riders as we explore food waste reduction, operational challenges, student engagement, and the opportunities for sustainability in school nutrition.

Discover how small changes in the cafeteria can make a meaningful difference in your school and community.

About Pisanick Partners

Pisanick Partners supports school nutrition programs through consulting, menu planning, culinary training, operational improvement, and innovative solutions that help schools serve nutritious meals while building stronger food systems.