Megan Ortiz's Contact Details

Megan Ortiz's Company Details

Cafeteria Culture

N/A, NY, US • 5 - 9 Employees
Waste/Recycling/Environmental

Cafeteria Culture (CafCu) is working creatively to achieve zero-waste public school cafeterias and climate smart communities. CafCu's efforts have dramatically reduced NYC school garbage and carbon and methane footprints via leading innovative eco-arts education, youth leadership, grassroots action, cross-sector coalition building, and alternative messaging. CafCu co-innovates solutions with communities, then shares valuable on-the-ground information with government agencies regarding design and garbage reduction, accelerating urgently needed change. Cafcu's work has repeatedly demonstrated that collaboration between citizens and government can reduce public resources needed for realizing zero waste, climate smart solutions. CafCu,founded in 2009 as Styrofoam Out of Schools, catalyzed Trayless Tuesdays in all 1,800 NYC schools by initiating an unlikely partnership with NYC School Food and Parsons. To date, Trayless Tuesdays has eliminated an impressive 100 million toxic and polluting styrene (or plastic) foam trays from student's meals, incinerators and landfills at no additional cost to the City, inspiring school districts across the nation to follow suit. Last year, as a result of CafCu's perseverance, collaboration, and design-based strategies, NYC decided to completely eliminate the 860,000 styrene foam trays used per day in schools. This sparked the formation of the 6-city Urban School Food Alliance to drive down cost of compostable plates by collectively purchasing. In 2015, 2.9 MILLION styrene foam trays used per day across the country will be eliminated. CafCu, also took the lead in frontline grassroots organizing, joining forces with 15 other organizations, to ensure the NY City Council's 2013 unanimous vote to ban styrene foam food containers citywide. CafCu received the 2013 US EPA Environmental Quality Award. Cohen, CafCu's Director, received the 2010 Eco-Hero award from the UFT Green Schools Committee for catalyzing Trayless Tuesdays.