The North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center has been awarded $1,700 to begin a composting program.
The state Department of Ecology announced Tuesday the recipients of the Terry Husseman School Awards for environmental programs.
The program recognizes schools annually for ongoing waste reduction efforts, starting new environmental programs or developing and teaching innovative curricula about reducing waste and promoting sustainability.
The skills center’s “Food Systems Science — Closing the Loop” program will build a compost system for the culinary arts program.
The compost will be used to grow herbs at the skills center.
“Worm juice” — created by worms as they eat waste and used as fertilizer — will be sold by students to fund future maintenance of the system, Ecology said.
Students also will earn credit toward graduation while learning “green” jobs skills.
Thirty-one public and private schools from across Washington state received cash awards for their outstanding environmental programs.
From $100 to $5,000
Award amounts ranged from $100 to $5,000.
This year, $30,554 was awarded to 31 successful proposals from the 34 applications that were received.
Last year, $28,975 was available for program awards.
Unlike past years, no ceremony was held this year to hand out the awards. Because of the state’s financial situation, Ecology officials elected to award all the program funds directly to the selected schools.
Funding for the program comes from the Waste Reduction, Recycling and Litter Control Account, generated by a tax on industries that sell, manufacture or distribute products and packaging that tend to become litter.
The award winners are listed at http://tinyurl.com/5wsekup.