La Cañada Elementary’s ‘Styroman’ aims to bring more recycling to district’s schools

For the past few months, students at La Cañada Elementary School have been seeing a new face on campus as the unforgettable “Styroman” makes occasional appearances in the cafeteria or at school assemblies.

A giant figure composed almost entirely of used Styrofoam trays, affixed with sticks and a box that can be worn on a person’s shoulders for the purpose of animation, Styroman is no mere novelty. Rather, he is a teaching tool crafted to specific purpose by members of LCE’s FIRST LEGO League team “Nuts and Bots.”

The national league encourages elementary-level engineering and coding hopefuls to find creative solutions to real-world problems. Participants then design, build and program a robot to execute tasks related to that year’s challenge.

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In November, Nuts and Bots members were given the theme “Trash Trek,” and asked to identify a problem in their community related to the handling of trash. To answer the challenge, the small group of students looked no further than the use of Styrofoam lunch trays in the school cafeteria, said parent and team co-adviser Alex Seropian.

“They immediately recognized all the trays students were throwing out at lunch,” he said. “So they started keeping a log of all they were throwing away.”

The students also visited a recycling plant, where they learned Los Angeles County does offer services for cleaned polystyrene products.

Styroman was made from about 200 discarded lunch trays from the La Cañada Elementary school’s lunch program.

(Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

“We have a big opportunity, because Los Angeles is one of the places that we can recycle Styrofoam,” said fifth-grade team member Sam Parks.

“Styrofoam trays are recyclable and L.A.’s not doing much about it, but maybe we could convince them,” added fourth-grader Om Mahesh.

A sorting bin was set up in the cafeteria to help fellow students understand the first step is awareness. Styroman was created as a visual representation of the massiveness of the school’s collective waste.

Nuts and Bots team members brought the issue, and their 7-foot tall mascot, before the La Cañada school board in a Feb. 9 meeting. There, Parks and Mahesh, along with fifth-graders Owen Seropian and Isaac Reiter, informed officials the Styrofoam products used by U.S. schools each year, if lined up end to end, could circle the planet five times.

LCUSD Chief Business and Operations Officer Mark Evans, petitioned by Nuts and Bolts for the project, described districtwide recycling as “a work in progress,” but said there’s been a growing desire by teachers and students to find more sustainable alternatives to things like Styrofoam lunch trays.

“There’s interest at multiple levels,” Evans said. “(And) it’s really nice to be green, but how do you implement it so you get the end results you want? This is a whole systemic thing; there’s several elements.”

Several campuses currently offer recycling opportunities. La Cañada High School science teacher Laura Wheeler, who advises the campus’ Green Club, said the group’s made several efforts in recent years, including installing bins at the back of the school and funding a water bottle refilling station.

“We have been trying without success to get the district to buy large recycling bins for the quad, where most of the recyclables get in the trash and do not get separated at break and lunch,” Wheeler wrote in an email interview.

Evans said recycling was added to the districts list of funding priorities last year after a group of students made a special request for its inclusion, so he’s in the early stages of hashing out a plan to promote sustainability on a shoestring budget.

Mahesh Ramas, who advises Nuts and Bolts with Alex Seropian, said things like Styrofoam trays may make financial sense, but come with hidden costs.

“Yes, these trays cost very little, but what’s the real cost to nature?” he posed. “You shouldn’t think of it as just the 3 cents it costs — there’s a much bigger impact.”

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine

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