CELPIP Listening Part 4 Practice Test: Real Dishes in the Cafeteria

NARRATOR: Students at a Truro high school have traded their paper plates for something a little heavier. Since January, the cafeteria has served every meal on real plates and bowls, with metal forks and spoons instead of plastic ones. The idea came from the school's environmental club, whose teenage members spent a week last fall sorting through the cafeteria's garbage. What they found surprised even the teachers: on an average day, the school was throwing away nearly four hundred disposable plates and cups. According to club president Maya Doucette, the hardest part wasn't convincing students, but finding a way to wash everything. The cafeteria's old dishwasher had broken years earlier and was never replaced. Eventually, a local restaurant that was closing donated its commercial machine, and parents volunteered to install it over the Christmas holidays. The change hasn't been entirely smooth. In the first month, dozens of forks went missing, and staff later discovered many of them in students' lockers and backpacks. The cafeteria manager estimates the school now saves about two hundred dollars a month on disposables, although some of that goes toward additional electricity and soap. Next year, the club hopes to tackle leftover food, which it says still fills most of the bins.