Cafeteria Culture (CafCu), is an environmental education nonprofit working creatively with youth to achieve equitable zero waste, climate-smart school communities and a plastic free biosphere. Our programs foster youth-led solutions by merging community science, civic action, media production, and the arts. Students in our programs, overwhelmingly from lower-income and communities of color, collect data, debate policy, and take on leadership roles that inform policy and offer solutions to the climate emergency that are leading to institutional change. (watch the trailer: www.microplasticmadness.org) Our award winning movie, MICROPLASTIC MADNESS, is an uplifting and take action story of fifty-six Brooklyn 5th grade students from our school program whose actions on plastic pollution morph into extraordinary leadership and victories that continue to lead to systemic change. The movie has reached audiences across the US and in 45 countries, sparking youth-led action to stop plastic pollution with schools as hubs for change. Partnering with school food directors and students, we catalyzed the complete elimination of styrofoam trays from New York City and fifteen other large school districts, resulting in a half a billion styrofoam trays diverted from landfills, incinerators and student meals per year. Now, with the Plastic Free Lunch Day initiative, we are building upon that success to eliminate the remaining single-use plastics from public school food service. Learn more: www.plasticfreelunch.org
