Mount Pleasant Magazine Sept/Oct 2019

40 www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.BestOfMP.com | www.ReadMPM.com feature 642 Coleman Boulevard • Mount Pleasant, SC 29464 843.856.9277 www.babybloomershome.com Back to school backpacks for all the cool kids! at lunch; they have three school garden beds; harvest crops for students to take home and eat; operate a 28 foot by 35 foot working classroom greenhouse; lead a horticulture program and host a plant sale twice a year; participate in the oyster bed restoration project called Seeds to Shoreline; recycle oyster shells; manage a native plant garden and an herb garden; and sell reusable sandwich and snack containers. If that isn’t enough, it was also thanks to Platt’s efforts that CCSD now uses compostable lunch trays rather than Styrofoam trays. She piloted the program at James B. Edwards in January, and, after the district noticed her efforts, they announced that all the schools would use the environmentally safe lunch trays. “It took so much effort and research to find trays that would be cost-effective, but we finally did,” Platt explained. It is estimated that this program will eliminate 2.9 million pounds of Styrofoam trays from going to the landfill in one year’s time. “The small increase in cost of the trays balances out due to the further decrease in the Burke High School students completed their oyster bed restoration project this spring. Photos courtesy of Peter Locher/Burke High School.