Foam tray review continues

Rawlins Daily Times, Jerrett Raffety

Rawlins Middle School head custodian Balentin Pacheco emptied a trash can full of Styrofoam lunch trays in the school's cafeteria on Wednesday. Some students want the foam trays banned fro the school.

By Janice Kurbjun
Times staff writer

Limited options and budget restraints have faced school officials as they’ve tried to eliminate plastic foam trays from the Rawlins Middle School kitchen inventory.

School Board member Dave Dingman plans Thursday to meet with the sixth graders who requested the elimination of the trays. He wants to talk about options with the students.
“There’s not a lot that you can do with Styrofoam right now,” Dingman said. Still, he has found some possibilities.

Dingman’s favorite idea is to purchase biodegradable trays made of corn and sucrose that decompose fairly rapidly. At 10 to 15 cents a pop, the trays are expensive, but address all the concerns of the students, including safety when carrying hot food. And the trays have environmental benefits. By contrast, plastic foam trays cost between 1 and 5 cents each.

Two other options exist, Dingman said. One involves gathering the trays after use and applying a chemical substance — acetone — to shrink them into a glue-like resin. The chemical is typically used on foam packing peanuts, so Dingman is not sure if it would effectively interact with food remnants on the lunch trays.

Another option is to install a dishwasher in the school’s kitchen and purchase permanent trays that would be reused.