The Canteen Waste Decision
At a co-educational school of 1,200 students, a Year 13 Education for Sustainability class audits waste and finds 85 kg of food waste and 40 kg of recyclable packaging going to landfill each week. The general waste contractor charges $180 per lift and collects three times weekly. The caretaker opposes on-site composting, citing smell, rodents and his workload. The board of trustees has told the class that any project must be cost-neutral by the end of Term 3 and must not add more than two hours per week to staff time. A marae-based community garden 9 km away has offered to take food waste, but the school has no trailer and the garden's volunteer rota is unreliable. The local council offers a one-off $1,500 waste minimisation grant. A survey of 300 students finds 62% would separate waste if bins were clearly labelled, but only 18% know what happens to the waste after collection. The canteen manager is willing to switch to compostable packaging but says it costs 12% more.
1. Identify the stakeholders and explain two value conflicts that the class must navigate. Explain how each conflict could constrain or shape the action they choose.
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Stakeholders: students, canteen manager, caretaker, board of trustees, waste contractor, marae community garden, council, families.
Conflict 1 - cost versus ecological benefit. The canteen manager's compostable packaging costs 12% more, while the board requires cost-neutrality. This is a genuine values clash: the manager is buying a visible environmental signal, but compostable packaging still needs a processing route the school does not have. It shapes the action toward source reduction first (portion sizes, ordering, reusable containers) because that reduces cost and volume at the same time, rather than swapping one material for another.
Conflict 2 - staff wellbeing versus diversion targets. The caretaker's concern about rodents and workload is an operational risk, not obstruction. If the class dismisses it, the action collapses when the students leave and the caretaker stops maintaining the system. It constrains the design toward a sealed, contracted collection or a caretaker-light system with clear responsibilities.
A third tension is reciprocity with the marae garden. Accepting their offer creates an obligation, and an unreliable volunteer rota makes the relationship fragile if the school treats the garden as free disposal. The 62%/18% survey gap matters: willingness is high but system understanding is low, so the action must include learning, not just bins.
2. Compare two possible actions - (a) a weekly trailer run to the marae garden and (b) an on-site three-bin system with a commercial compost collection - using a sustainability lens: systems, long-term viability, and participation. Recommend one and justify your recommendation with the evidence.
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(a) Trailer run to the marae garden. Ecologically attractive because waste becomes a local soil input and builds a relationship. But it depends on a vehicle the school does not have, a volunteer rota described as unreliable, and staff time for loading. In systems terms it is a single fragile link: one missed week and waste reverts to landfill. It also shifts the burden onto the marae rather than the school that produces the waste.
(b) Three-bin system plus commercial collection. Higher direct cost, but the $1,500 grant and reduced general-waste lifts (fewer than three per week) could approach cost-neutrality. It is system-compatible: the contractor already comes to site, responsibilities can be written into the caretaker's role, and separation is scalable to 1,200 students. Participation evidence supports it: 62% of surveyed students would separate waste, but only 18% understand the destination, so the system needs visible signage and a class-led education component.
Recommendation: option (b) as the core, with a small trial of (a) for uncontaminated food scraps once a fortnight, framed as a relationship with the garden rather than a disposal contract. This keeps the ecological and cultural benefit without making the whole system dependent on an unreliable link. Justify by durability and participation, not just by kilograms diverted.
3. Design two indicators the class should monitor to judge whether the chosen action is genuinely sustainable rather than a token effort. Explain what each indicator would show and what would count as failure.
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Indicator 1 - contamination rate of separated bins (%. by weight of wrong items per audit). This tests whether participation is real. A low diversion tonnage with high contamination means students are putting waste in bins without understanding the system, which is a token outcome. Failure: contamination above about 15% for two consecutive audits, or contamination rising after the novelty period ends. This indicator also measures whether the education component is working, because the 18% understanding figure should rise.
Indicator 2 - net cost per week compared with the baseline $540 (three lifts at $180). This tests the board's cost-neutral condition and reveals whether savings come from genuine diversion or from cutting collections while waste accumulates. Failure: net cost above $540 after the grant is spent, or general waste volume unchanged.
A useful third would be a staff-time log, because the two-hour constraint is where many school sustainability projects quietly fail. The reasoning is that sustainability claims need to survive the departure of the initiating class; indicators should measure persistence, understanding and cost, not just the visible activity of sorting.