ABOUT CAFETERIA CULTURE
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Cafeteria Culture (CafCu), founded as Styrofoam Out of Schools, is a national environmental education nonprofit that centers school cafeterias as robust student action hubs to address food waste, plastic pollution, and other climate issues.
Based in NYC, CafCu works creatively with youth to design and implement pilot projects that are replicated and scaled nationally. Pilot project schools serve predominantly lower-income public housing communities and communities of color. CafCu uses accessible educational media (science, civics, video production, and the arts) to enable youth agency and invite their urgently needed environmental justice leadership. Among its many accomplishments, CafCu catalyzed the elimination of styrofoam trays from NYC’s public schools in 2015, produced the award-winning film Microplastic Madness in 2019, initiated the PFLD movement in 2022, and is currently developing and testing scalable cafeteria solutions to reduce plastic and food waste. |
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CafCu's award winning, student-led, documentary, Microplastic Madness (2019), has been screened in 45 countries and is sparking youth-led action for a plastic free future with schools as hubs for change. (Host a screening of Microplastic Madness, always free for under-resourced school). We are now working to eliminate the remaining single-use plastics from NYC and US public school cafeterias, reviving refill and reuse models and piloting new methods for dramatically reducing wasted food so that school organics can be managed locally. |
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Microplastic Madness is the winner of many prestigious film festival awards including:
- Peggy Charred Award for Excellence, Boston International Kids Film Festival
- Best Documentary - Amateur Category (over 40 minutes), Raw Science Film Festival
- Best Feature Documentary Film - Audience Choice, Providence Children’s Film Festival
- Best Documentary Feature Award - Youth Jury, Children’s Film Festival Seattle
- Best Solution Award, Cinema Verde Environmental Film and Art Festival
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Cafeteria Culture (CafCu), catalyzed the complete elimination of plastic styrofoam trays from all NYC public schools and nine other large U.S. school districts, resulting in half a billion styrofoam trays diverted from landfills, incinerators and student meals annually. Building upon this victory, we continue to pilot solutions in partnership with New York City students and staff to rid public school cafeterias of all the remaining single-use plastic.
Students in our programs debate the issues, collect local data, analyze their own data, conduct video interviews, design solutions, and educate decision makers with their persuasive, personal storytelling that is supported by their own data. Their leadership accelerates solutions that address environmental justice and the plastic pollution/climate crises. The Cafeteria Culture Background Story -> |
Cafeteria Culture is a partner project of the
Fund for the City of New York. Your donation is eligible for charitable deductions under section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code. |
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Environmental Education Awards include: 2022-23 - a competitive US EPA grant for our School Cafeteria Waste Reduction Interventions for Climate Smart Food Service program to pilot low-cost, scalable interventions with detailed waste audits, video documentation and student partnership and messaging to dramatically reduce food and food packaging waste. 2022-23 - a competitive Japan Foundation Grant for our Okinawa & New York Youth for Global Plastic Pollution Action program that partners students from two schools in Iriomote Island in Okinawa, Japan with students from our NYC partner school, PS/MS 188 the Island School, to foster a student-driven exploration of the plastic pollution problem that plagues both countries. 2016-2017 - a competitive US EPA grant for piloting Trash Free Waters interdisciplinary education in 3 schools, including PS 15, which led to the creation of our award winning movie, "Microplastic Madness." 2015 - CafCu was one of only five North American organizations to receive an inaugural UL Innovative Education Award for advancing environmental STEM education, sustainable communities, and youth empowerment for our ARTS+ACTION school program (awarded via North American Association of Environmental Education); 2013 - Environmental Quality Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2. |
EPA Environmental Quality Award. Linda Cox, Exec. Director Bronx River Alliance; Atsuko Quirk; Debby Lee Cohen; Judith Enck, EPA Region 2 Administrator. New York City, April 19, 2013
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Students in our programs learn 21st Century skills, including collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, and participatory democracy, then engage local, national, and international audiences with their creative and informed youth-made messages and videos. |
PS15 K 5th graders workshop built masks and wrote skits to engage their community on plastic litter and TRASH FREE WATERS
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PS 34 M - ARTS+ACTION 5th graders with NY City Council Members and environmental leaders speaking on why styrofoam should be banned; NY City Hall, November, 2013.
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Watch all our videos on YouTube here->
VISION
We envision a zero waste future
where landfill and incinerator garbage as we know it no longer exists;
where post consumption waste from food to packaging is drastically reduced
and what remains benefits our schools, communities, and the environment.
We envision a zero waste future
where landfill and incinerator garbage as we know it no longer exists;
where post consumption waste from food to packaging is drastically reduced
and what remains benefits our schools, communities, and the environment.
PS 20 M - ARTS+ACTION - Make Change Messaging with 2nd grade class, constructing a giant polar bear puppet from used foam trays.
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MS 246 Brooklyn, 8th graders interviewing neighbors about litter and environmental justice, East Flatbush, 2014.
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PS 34 M 5th graders celebrating the end of NYC school polystyrene era and NYC's zero waste goals, Union Square, June 2015
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