As promised, here is the blog on how to cut waste in your cafeteria at school. Since I know that kids, when they put their mind to it, can get more done than adults I figured I would give you more than just the cafeteria to work on - I know you can do it! Parents who are reading - work with your kids to help them "green" their school.

Bad news first - there are a lot of things that your school does to waste energy and there is not tons you can do about it, so don't get frustrated. For instance classrooms are heated, lit, and cooled by and large in pretty inefficient ways. This inefficiency leads to schools using about $6 billion a year in energy, and here is the worst part - 25% of that energy is wasted! $1.5 billion wasted every year - enough to hire about 30,000 new teachers. As the daughter and granddaughter of public school teachers I grew up watching my dad try to conserve in his own classroom, but changing the whole culture in schools is even tougher. So I encourage you to talk to your administrators the way you did about cafeteria food to see if they can put lights on timers and use more efficient light bulbs, and by all means remind folks to turn out the lights when they leave a room. But let's focus on what you can do to make a difference since you have control over your own behavior and can set a good example for others to follow.