Clark County Green Schools

Photo banner featuring a cafeteria waste station, the Green Schools logo with text Clark County Green Schools wrapped around an apple and a photo of a cafeteria share table.

Clark County Green Schools works with all local public and private K-12 schools in their sustainability efforts. We’re here to encourage environmental leadership and give students tools to implement change in their schools.  

School waste reduction

Clark County Green Schools can help your school keep waste out of landfills. We’ll work with you to reduce waste, send more items to be recycled and compost leftover food items – or better yet, feed hungry people! Our team will collaborate with you and your school to create the best solution to reduce waste. We will provide education, resources and containers to make waste reduction efforts successful. 

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A cafeteria sort table, featuring landfill, recycle and compost options for waste disposal

Clark County Green Schools provides cafeteria waste sorting stations, including customized tables and signage. Sort stations walk students through a process to properly separate their liquids, recyclables, food scraps and trash. We also provide education and support to ensure students embrace this change and that the efforts have the highest potential for success. 

Learn more about cafeteria sort stations. 

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Feeding hungry people is even more important than composting! We work with schools and districts to find ways to get excess food to people who need it most. Share tables are included in our sorting stations. Students can place their uneaten, unwanted lunch items for others to eat rather than throwing them out. Some schools even donate uneaten food to their Family and Community Resource Centers (FCRCs) or local food banks. 

We’d love to work with your school to make sure edible food gets to people who need it the most! 

Learn more about share table guidelines.  

View share table training videos. 

A share table with two bins of leftover apples and pears and milk cartons on ice.
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We want to ensure recycling and food composting efforts at your school are successful! We’ll meet with you to determine the best setup for your school's unique needs. We can provide the necessary recycling containers and cafeteria sorting stations at no charge. We’re here to make sure you have the resources to recycle and compost food waste effectively.  

Learn more about free tools available to help your school recycle and compost. 

Education

Educating youth about environmental issues is an important component in fostering care for the planet. Our goal is to help students discover their passion for the helping the environment

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A pair of students working together to inventory school waste as part of a waste audit

Waste has enormous impacts on environments, economies and societies throughout the world. We each have a responsibility to understand how much we produce, and how our choices can reduce waste, protecting natural resources and human health. 

Waste audits involve sorting through school waste to collect data about the amounts and types of waste generated. We use that data to create a customized student-driven plan for improving waste reduction and disposal at school. Waste audits are typically scheduled after school hours and are conducted on school grounds with the assistance and resources provided by Clark County Green Schools and Waste Connections of Washington. 

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West Van Materials Recovery Facility Tour 

When we put our garbage and recycling at the curb, it seems to just go ”away.” Join us on a tour of the West Van Materials Recovery Facility and see where it actually goes! 

It’s an eye-opening experience – garbage piled high, a huge trash compactor, a mound of glass and areas where hazardous waste, tires, electronics, appliances, and more are collected for transport and disposal. Students must be at least eight years old to attend the tour. Clark County Green Schools reimburses for transportation costs.  

View the video transfer station tour.

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Waste Story and Relay 

Students will learn how waste never “goes away” and has impacts on our environment before, during and after disposal. They will also understand the scale of resources needed to landfill garbage, sort recyclables and compost scraps in a commercial facility. For the activity portion, students will practice what they learned by working together and racing to sort items into the correct disposal categories (reuse, recycle, compost, and garbage). 

Will Hornyak, Storyteller 

Will Hornyak is a gifted storyteller who has crafted waste reduction and sustainability assemblies for Clark County Green Schools. As part of your school’s targeted efforts towards waste reduction, we will bring Will to you at no charge. Will generally does two assemblies for an elementary school, with one for grades K-2 and another for grades 3-5, back-to-back. 

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The Journey of Waste and Sort 

Students will gain a deeper understanding of the impacts of waste on our environment before, during, and after disposal. They will come to realize the massive amounts of fuel, electricity, people and time required for proper waste disposal. We will discuss landfilling garbage, the recyclables sorting system and commercial composting. This lesson includes an interactive presentation, a video of recyclables sorting from West Van Materials Recovery Facility, and an activity to practice correct waste sorting.  

Sorting System Design 

This design challenge engages students in an activity that practices skills like problem solving, engineering and collaboration. Students will also learn about challenges to our waste management systems, the importance of waste reduction and proper recycling. By designing changes to the current recycle sort system in Clark County, students will appreciate the resources used in the recycling process and the difficulties in maximizing the resource re-capture rate via recycling. 

Clark County Student Summit 

Clark County Green Schools partners with EarthGen to provide a secondary student summit event for students grades 6-12. At the summit, students will take a deeper dive into various sustainability topics and connect with other students and local environmental organizations to strengthen their change-making abilities. Bus and substitute teacher costs are reimbursed by Clark County Green Schools. The summit is typically in the fall. Sign up for our newsletter to receive future event announcements. 

Green teams

A school green team working together on a project

We’ve put together some worksheets full of helpful information to help you start a Green Team at your school. 

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Learn more about starting a new green team at your school. 

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Activity sheets for students to create a green team and imagine project ideas. 

Download worksheets for elementary, middle, and high school levels. 

Clark County Compost Academy

Students in Compost Academy turn the compost pile they made with food scraps, leaves, sawdust, and grass clippings.

Clark County Solid Waste and Recycling is excited to offer a fun and engaging internship program for high school students at Fort Vancouver High School and Hudson’s Bay High School!  

Through hands-on training, students learn about various composting techniques, compost science, sustainable agriculture and strategies to prevent food waste. Students take what they learn and apply it to projects that will be implemented at their schools.  

This opportunity will again be available for students at Hudson’s Bay High School and Fort Vancouver High School next fall. Be sure to sign up for our email newsletter and check back here in the spring for the application! 

This work is supported by the Composting and Food Waste Reduction Pilot Project, project award no 2025-70510-44352, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.   

Contact information

Solid Waste and Recycling Division
564.397.7352 
Email 

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