"Zero Waste Thanksgiving Feast"

The Paideia School and over 1000 students, parents and teachers will celebrate their Thanksgiving with exclusive compostable products. The "Zero Waste Thanksgiving Feast" will be held on Wednesday, November 26th from 11 a.m. to 1p.m. at The Paideia School. Atlanta-based Greenco Environmental will be combining the event's food waste with yard and wood waste to create a high quality organic compost with zero landfill contribution.

In its third year, the Thanksgiving Feast has almost hit the zero mark in the past (in 2007 only the equivalent of one trash bag of waste for landfill remained). With Greenco Environmental's help, The Paideia School's Recycling Coordinator, Tania Herbert, who heads up the school's Green Team believes that "ZERO" is attainable.

"In the past we have worked with a company that was not 'officially' a composting facility. Working with Greenco Environmental will provide us with the confidence that our diverted waste will be properly composted, as intended, in a state-of-the-art facility," explains Herbert.


Here is what is unique about the "Zero Waste Thanksgiving Feast":

*All 1000+ serving pieces will be certified compostable products

*All plates, cups, cutlery (actually made from sugar cane!) and napkins will be made from sustainable sources like recycled paper and corn and are compostable

*There won't be any typical garbage bags for collection, but biobags will be used

*All food scraps from the Feast will be collected for compost

*As opposed to using plastic milk cartons, Greenco will be grinding up chocolate milk cartons and composting them, saving Paideia money and avoiding using plastic containers

*Students bring in side dishes in recyclable containers while parent volunteers bake the turkeys and help serve the meal

*Aluminium food containers will be wiped down with recycled paper napkins (without using Georgia's precious water supply) and Greenco will compost those food soiled napkins

*Guaranteed "no contamination" biobag waste

*Eco-products are all approved by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) and follow the Sustainable Bioplastics Collaborative (SBC) guidelines

*Greenco will haul away and recycle waste from the Feast to its 32-acre facility in Barnesville, Georgia where in 90 it will become green, high quality organic compost with zero landfill contribution

For more information on The Paideia School visit www.paideiaschool.org.

For more information on Greenco Environmental visit www.greencoenvironmental.com.