For a greener living, the switch to hard plastic plates from Styrofoam will be an important change.The amount of Styrofoam trays used at Gainesville High School during Breakfast and Lunch is an unbelievable number of 684,000 per year. It is increasing every year with students coming from the middle school to high school. Styrofoam trays take hundreds of years to decompose. The amount of Styrofoam that Gainesville High School uses is a huge burden on the environment and will continue to be until we change. Gainesville High School spends pennies per plate and this money is literally thrown in the trash. One solution for this problem is investing in hard plastic trays that can be washed and reused. The school can buy the trays once and then only replace broken trays each year. This would cost the school system time for the employees to wash trays but it would definitely be better for the environment and would reduce the cost of trash pickup. This change would benefit our school, our environment and our budget!