In January and the beginning of February, students at State High noticed a switch from metal to plastic utensil options offered in the cafeteria. This temporary change was caused by a shortage of metal spoons and forks. 

This shortage is not unique to State High. Across the school district, cafeterias are running out of metal utensils. 

“It’s easy to dump your tray, and the fork just goes in the trash,” kitchen supervisor Ryan Miller said. 

He stated that these utensil shortages are caused when metal spoons and forks are accidentally thrown away when students dump their trays at lunch. Roughly 2,000 students eat in the cafeteria each day, so these discarded utensils quickly add up.

“We started the year with, my guess is 50,000 [metal utensils] because that’s what a case is, and we went to zero…the big thing is we just don’t get back what we put out,” Miller said.

When there aren’t enough metal utensils, plastic ones are used instead. Plastic utensils are also used on  2-hour delay schedules and during staffing shortages.

While plastic utensils solve the shortage of metal utensils, their use raises some concerns about their impact on the environment. While metal spoons and forks can be washed and reused, the plastic ones must be thrown out.

“…by getting rid of the [reusable] option, it’s definitely a lot less sustainable cause we’re going to see a lot more waste…I would love to have the school be all reusable utensils at some point,”  environmental club president Kazie Dingwell said.

However, the use of metal utensils in the cafeteria will shortly resume as staff await a shipment of 50,000 new metal spoons and forks. But due to the cost, it will be difficult to keep replacing lost utensils in the future.

Administration hopes to find a solution to prevent students from throwing out the metal utensils so shortages do not continue to occur.

“…if we could figure out a way to keep [the utensils] from going in the trash, we could have all metal forks, spoons, and knives,” Miller said.

In some elementary schools, magnetic garbage can lids that catch utensils thrown into the trash, and pizza parties and donuts have acted as incentives to deter students from throwing out metal utensils. While these solutions work well in elementary schools, they may not work well at State High due to the large student body and cafeteria space. 

However, staff are still working to find a long-term solution that allows reusable options to be used more regularly in the State High cafeteria.