Cafeteria Culture Email Format
Environmental ServicesNew York, United States11-50 Employees
Cafeteria Culture, a small environmental education nonprofit based in New York City, works to create equitable, climate-smart school communities and a plastic-free biosphere. Its programs blend community science, civic action, media production, and the arts to empower students, many from lower-income communities and communities of color, to collect data, discuss policy, and step into leadership roles that influence institutional decisions. The organization has produced an award-winning documentary, MicroPlastic Madness, following Brooklyn students and illustrating how youth-led action can drive systemic change. In 2023, Cafeteria Culture partnered with the Urban School Food Alliance to host Plastic Free Lunch Day, a nationwide initiative to reduce plastic ware and packaging in school cafeterias. The organization's collaboration with the City of New York and with NYC DOE offices and other partners led to the elimination of styrofoam trays from New York City and fifteen other large districts, diverting roughly half a billion trays from landfills and incinerators each year. The Plastic Free Lunch Day program continues to advance the goal of removing remaining single-use plastics from public school food service.