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Summerland student diverts food waste to local farmers

Graduating student Franky Murdocco provided organic feed to local farmers like Linda Van Alphen
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Summerland Secondary School student Franky Murdocco started a system to divert organic waste from the garbage and donate it to local farmers during the 2018-19 school year. (Submitted photo)

With files from Joshua Oggelsby

Local farmer Linda Van Alphen’s chickens and sheep were eating fresh fruit and vegetables this spring, thanks to a Summerland Secondary School student who started a waste management program.

Rather than purchasing pre-formed feed for her animals, Van Alphen said she was able to provide banana peels, potato skins and peelings from carrots.

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“We’ve been able to give them, literally, fresh fruit and vegetables,” she said. “Which is far healthier for them.”

Van Alphen is just one of the local farmers benefiting from the program, started by grade 12 student Franky Murdocco this school year.

Murdocco said he started the program because he noticed food waste in garbage bins at the school.

“I thought to myself, ‘Why not change that,’” he said.

He researched composting as part of his environmental sciences course and worked with school administration to purchase four bins.

Inspired by the work of a previous student, Alicia Nightingale, he ensured one of the bins was for organic waste, to help feed farm animals in the area.

The other bins are for garbage, recycling and returnables.

When the bins were in place, Murdocco made signs and announcements at the school to educate his fellow students about the new system.

Then, Van Alphen received a phone call and started meeting Murdocco every second Wednesday at the school at 3 p.m., to pick up the organics he had diverted from the dump.

“He was the one who put it all together and then phoned me,” she said of Murdocco. “He just did such a good job and I was so proud of him.”

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Last week, the two met for one last pick up at the school.

With Murdocco graduating and heading to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Van Alphen said she will have to wait until the fall to benefit from the program again.

Biology and environmental sciences teacher Shona Becker has assured Van Alphen that she will find another student to continue and improve upon the waste management system when the next school year starts.

“For sure we’ll continue it,” Becker said, adding that they may even try to add a second system of bins.

“We still need to work on it,” she said. “A lot more food product is going into the garbage than could be, but it’s a fabulous start.”

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