Sophia Anderson uses a lunch tray at West Valley High School on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022.

Students grab lunch trays at West Valley High School on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022.

Sophia Anderson uses a lunch tray at West Valley High School on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022.

Students grab lunch trays at West Valley High School on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022.

All around the school cafeteria, what do we see? White Styrofoam trays. Trays that are tossed in the trash after just one use. Thousands of Styrofoam trays that are used each day, ending up in landfills or polluting our oceans.

The West Valley School District is among the school districts trying to help our environment and get rid of those disposable trays. Recently, the district has started to use reusable lunch trays.

Initially, West Valley started using the new trays because the schools were unable to purchase other trays due to pandemic shortages. Since late October, however, the district has slowly started using reusable lunch trays until there was enough for everyone to use for all meals.

The district has actually jumped ahead of the game on this, as the Washington State Department of Ecology has recently started to implement two sections of a new law. The first section of that law, which took effect in January, prohibits schools from being allowed to automatically provide single-use items such as forks, straws and napkins during meals. Students must request those items, or staff members must ask a student if they want those items, or students must select them at self-serve stations. The law also prohibits schools from providing utensils in bundled packages.

The second section of the law says that starting June 2024, schools will not be allowed to purchase any extended polystyrene food service products, such as Styrofoam lunch trays.

These efforts under the new state law are designed to encourage sustainable habits and help the environment. By changing its lunch trays, West Valley has gotten an early jump on the process.

Maham Khan is a freshman at West Valley High School.

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