Middletown School District Case Study (2024)

Since 2022, the amount of trash generated in Connecticut has exceeded instate disposal capacity, and about 40% of municipal waste has been shipped out of state, which is costly, so there is motivation for waste reduction statewide. The Middletown Public School System consists of ten schools and enrolls around 4,500 students. For many years, the Director of Food, Nutrition, and Wellness Services has eagerly taken on sustainability initiatives in the cafeterias such as the separating kitchen food scraps for composting with Blue Earth Compost, purchasing reusable cloth bags for the breakfast program, and implementing hard reusable plastic cafeteria trays.

ReThink Disposable has joined the schools’ efforts to fight single-use disposable waste and plastic pollution by phasing out all disposable dining ware in school cafeterias district-wide. All disposables are being replaced with a reusable alternative, a one-to-one swap for each item. The transition is happening in several phases with the first phase of reusable plates and bowls rolled out in the fall of 2024.  

All schools have an operating commercial dishwasher, giving them the ability to wash reusables in-house. The reusable food ware was purchased with funding from a CT Equipment Assistance grant, individual donors through a Sustainable CT campaign, and a utensil donation from Plastic Free Restaurants.