Fifth graders at Charles Reed Elementary School in Plainfield School District 202 are trying to reduce food waste at their school, one piece of food at a time.

Students in teacher Mitchell Grilliot’s class conducted a food waste audit during all lunch periods in April, District 202 said in a news release.

When students were done with their school-provided lunch, they brought any uneaten food to a table where Grilliot’s class was set up. The fifth graders took the wasted food and sorted it into buckets, including vegetables, fruits and milk, the district said.

The fifth-graders also asked the students why they were throwing food away, “for reasons such as the food was cold, had to take it, didn’t like the taste, was full, or it was too greasy,” the district said.

The results of their project revealed the following:

• More than 108 pounds of food and more than 155 pounds of food and milk waste
• Almost 25% of the food waste was fresh apples
• Almost 46% of the students said they “didn’t like” whatever they threw away
• The estimated waste across all District 202 schools is more than 200 tons a year.

The goal of the project is to work with school administration and the district’s food service provider to find solutions, the district said.

“The best idea so far has been to find a company to help us compost [the food waste] or find a farm that will take it,” Grilliot said in the release.

There are schools in neighboring states, such as Minnesota, that already are doing this with their waste, he said. Grilliot and his students should be hopeful about the future of reducing food waste.

Last school year, his students collected the plastic bags that contained daily breakfast offerings and tied them together. They laid the tied bags outside the entire school to show how many bags were being used, the district said.

The students presented the data to Aramark, the district food service provider, and the company stopped bagging the food on the second floors at all elementary schools, the district said.