JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Students empty their lunch trays into a compost bin at Christiansburg High School. Since students began sorting their leftovers into the three bins — compostable food and materials, plastic bottles and trash — the cafeteria is cleaner, says Doug Harless, the school's head custodian.

| Anna L. Mallory

anna.mallory@roanoke.com, 381-8627

CHRISTIANSBURG -- This school year, Christiansburg High School Principal Rhonda Poindexter is keeping watch over the lunch crowd.

For at least one of the high school's three daily lunch periods, she stands over a green trash bin to remind students that their milk cartons will decompose -- but the aluminum keeping their corn dogs warm won't.

It's an effort to help the Blue Demons, and eventually the rest of Montgomery County's schools, go partially green. The school system has contracted with Floyd-based composting company Poplar Manor Enterprises to haul away materials, and students at Christiansburg High School are taking part in the pilot program.

"It certainly is a big undertaking for all schools to be able to pull off," said Patricia Gaudreau, the county's supervisor who is spearheading the project. "We're learning a lot."

More schools across the county, and the region, are tackling composting. Next year, Gaudreau said, she does plan to expand to more county schools.

The impact, both financially and educationally, will be great, she said.

The company charges the school system $4 a month to rent each of its 45 trash bins and another $5.25 per bin for dumping and cleaning, according to their contract. The actual monthly cost will vary, depending on how often and how much they pick up, though.

PME, one of two companies in the state licensed through the Department of Environmental Quality to compost food, is working with six schools in Roanoke as well as Virginia Tech and Radford University. Royal Oak Farms in Bedford is the other business, but it contracts with larger companies.

Mindy Fraley, who owns PME with her husband, Calin, said curbing the waste cycle at public schools is key to helping the environment. In January, the Fraleys were certified to compost food products.

While the business has been around since 2005 -- the couple having set aside 7 acres of their 132-acre farm -- the certification changed the focus of their business.

So far, the program is at least cutting down on landfill waste.

Custodians at the school used to take blue trash bins to the landfill daily. The remains from three lunch periods and classroom waste could fill a 12-cubic-yard bin -- or about 15 bags -- of trash, said head custodian Doug Harless.

Now, the daily output is about three trash bags, and 15 of the compost bins and three days pass before they head to the landfill, he said.

"It's a little more work for us because we have to make sure it's all together, but it's worth it," Harless said.

In August, PME pulled about 1.34 tons of compostable organic waste that otherwise would have been tossed into those trash bags, Mindy Fraley said.

Since students began sorting their leftovers into the three bins -- compostable food and materials, plastic bottles and trash -- the cafeteria is cleaner, Harless said. In the past, students would just leave their trash on the table.

By mid-semester, the school's environmental club plans to take the principal's place at the lunch bins. The club has been recycling newspaper and some bottles for a while, but now it has a different purpose, said teacher Bill Fletcher.

The new project, he said, is better because it gets more than club members involved. It's a tricky task to get kids used to doing, the company's owners said.

For the first week or so of school, Mindy Fraley oversaw the lunchtime sorting. She also trained county and school-level staff.

Sorting is key because the mix has to be clean, she said.

The Fraleys said they hope that composting in schools has a lasting effect.

"They may not like it now, but I feel like in the future they're going to be saying, 'Hey, I was composting and helping,' " Mindy Fraley said.