Meet the Composter: Delaware Valley Friends School

Delaware Valley Friends School

Delaware Valley Friends School, located in Paoli, is a Quaker school for students in grades 1-12 with learning differences. DVFriends has 212 students attending, from over 43 school districts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. 

The school has been composting with Back to Earth Compost Crew since September of 2022 . Buckets are placed out for Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School lunches, along with a bucket in the Staff lunch room. Signage reminds everyone what belongs in the compost bin. At the conclusion of all three lunches, student volunteers in Lower School take the full bucket out to a storage shed, for it to be picked up weekly.

As a Quaker school, DVFriends stands strongly behind the concept of being good stewards to Earth, and the responsibility as humans to help maintain it for a sustainable and healthy future.

DVFriends has many sustainable practices. The school cafe uses dispensers for plastic utensils, allowing students to take only what they need, instead of offering bundled utensils in plastic packaging.  In addition, compostable plates and napkins are used.  DV Friends removed vending machines that sell drinks in plastic containers and have water bottle filling stations installed next to all traditional water fountains, to encourage students to refill their own bottles. The faculty lounge no longer stocks any disposable cups and cutlery, but have invested in washable mugs and silverware and ask people to wash and return these items for use by others; staff members use sticks of fettucine  instead of disposable stir sticks for coffee; buy half and half in large cartons instead of offering single use plastic ones; and provide hand towels and drying towels in the kitchen to reduce paper towel usage. The campus has solar panel arrays on all roofs, and the landscaping is nearly 100% Pennsylvania native plants. This summer, a green roof will be installed on a new rooftop surface, as well. 

DVFriends worked with another composting service before using Back to Earth Compost Crew. Director of Development Anne-Marie McMahon shares “the school used serving materials in the cafe at that time made with PLA, a plant-based bioplastic. They looked too much like plastic, however, and it may have been responsible for students including large amounts of non-compostable trash items in the compost collection containers, which ultimately scuttled first attempts at collection.” The school also initially attempted to compost "compostable silverware" until realizing that those items are not actually compostable in any facilities in the state. They have since moved to paper-based serving ware in the cafe and single item plastic silverware.

DVFriends has found composting with Back to Earth Compost Crew to be a very seamless and relatively easy process. According to Spanish Teacher and Service Committee liaison Katya Hottenstein, “once we got up and running it has been great to step back and let the system work! I greatly appreciate the notifications, as well as the feedback regarding poundage - as that is great info to share with the community. We've also had students come and volunteer with Trellis for Tomorrow, which has been a great way for students to see the full picture and bigger scope/purpose of composting.” 

Back to Earth Compost Crew is happy to be a part of the sustainability efforts of Delaware Valley Friends School!