San Mateo County Zero Waste Education Alliance (ZWEA) Engagement Data

Experiences with community based organizations are an important tool that schools use to provide environmental education to students. These experiences range from field trips to in-class activities and can focus on any number of sustainability focus areas (waste, land based ecosystems, energy, and more).  

The ZWEA Network (a sub-network of CBEEP) has worked together to develop a shared data set of school programs,  with the goal of understanding the landscape of San Mateo County schools access and integration of zero waste education experiences. 

Each of the visualizations below have an introduction and analysis recommendations to help users understand how the ZWEA Network is supporting schools with environmental education in San Mateo County. Utilize the embedded filters to answer questions, and see smaller sets of engagement data. 

Zero Waste Education Programs by Type

Data and Visualization Overview: This visualization shows the types of zero waste education programs provided by ZWEA partners, and how many times those programs were done in 2021-22 school year. 

Analysis Recommendations: By looking at the popularity of different types of programs ZWEA partners can better understand the needs of school leaders. 

Individual District Engagement Data

Data and Visualization Overview: These visualizations can be used to take a closer look at each school district individually. This section is helpful for users who want to know what types of education programs and which schools within individual school districts participated in zero waste education with ZWEA partner organizations. The second visual in this section shows the waste service haulers for each schools waste streams (garbage, recycling, organics). School leaders can contact their waste haulers for materials such as sorting guides, and for waste education presentations. 

Analysis Recommendations: Use the filters below to see which schools and which community partner organizations worked together in the 2021-22 school year.

Waste Education Programs

Waste Hauling

Comparison of Schools with/without Zero Waste Education Programs within School Districts

Data and Visualization Overview: This visualization compares San Mateo County School Districts based on the number of schools that partnered with a ZWEA organization, and the total number of schools within that school district. These data point shows how widespread these programs are across individual school  districts, and compared between the public school districts in San Mateo County. The comparison is shown as a side-to-side bar graph, where the orange bar is the number of schools where a ZWEA organization provided a waste education program, and the blue bar is the total number of schools in that district.

Analysis Recommendations: This visualization show how the majority of school districts do not have equitable access and participation in zero wast education programs. Teaching on zero waste remains largely dependent on the individual interest of zero waste champion teachers and students. Waste sorting education in particular needs to be consistently given to all members of a school community in order to be most effective at minimizing contamination and increasing waste diversion rates.