[Student Voices] The Slop Monster
Published: 17 Feb. 2025, 09:00
Updated: 17 Feb. 2025, 09:46
Seamoon Choi, Chadwick International
by Seamoon Choi, Chadwick International
That day, I saw a terrible, horrifying sight. I was walking down the school hallway, my tummy half-full of my half-eaten lunch—when I saw it. The huge bucket was filled with unfinished rice, noodles, and meat. The slippery, slimy slop looked like it had come from an evil alien monster, spreading slime all across the planet.
The only ones left in the cafeteria were the lunch ladies, throwing away the rest of the food. I thought there had to be at least 15 kilograms of food in one single bucket. Later, I couldn’t play with my friends at recess. I felt ashamed of myself. I had only eaten half my meal, and I had finally figured out ... what was done to the rest of the food. If there were 120 people in a grade, and five grades in a school, and if everyone ate half a plate just like I did, that would mean 300 full plates—dumped in the trash.
I knew, of course, what would happen next. First, the lunch ladies would take it outside. They would dump it into the food waste machine. The garbage truck would come along, scooping the whole lot up. As the food breaks down in some landfill, gas would rise and contribute to climate change. Of course, I knew all this. But I didn’t know that the problem would come this strongly, this impactfully into me.
Later that day, I talked with some of my friends. How were we going to stop this?
“I don’t know. What can we do?”
“Should we try making a poster?”
“Not effective.”
“An event?”
“Nobody would care.”
“A website?”
“Too hard to make.”
“Make some accessories? Like bags?”
“We don’t know anyone who can do that.”
There was no easy answer. It was a problem that stuck to our minds for the rest of the week. That is, until we came up with the idea for a schoolwide contest. Every time the students in a class finished their whole plate without wasting any food, they would get a sticker.
After just a single month of this contest, many people weren’t wasting food anymore. Now, I felt good. I knew what it felt like to accomplish something. But I soon realized that it wasn’t enough.
According to the United Nations Environment Program, there were more than a billion tons of food waste in the world last year. Our school contest was a good start, I knew. But was this all we could do?
I decided to give a speech in front of the school. When the big day arrived and I walked up on stage, I looked around at about 500 people sitting in the auditorium, bored, and ready to leave at any moment. I felt dizzy and very, very nervous as I started my speech. My voice was trembling, and I wondered if the audience was even listening to me. Now, I told the school, there are three simple things you can do to help.
One: Take only the amount of food you need.
Two: Eat up all your food.
Three: Tell others about steps one and two.
These are simple solutions, but they can lead to a big change—if we all work together. My heart was pounding in my chest as I delivered the rest of my speech. Looking around at the faces in the audience, I wondered if my words would make a difference.
A few weeks later, I returned to the hallway with the lunch ladies and the huge bucket of slop. I was shocked by what I saw: the monster had been defeated. The big bucket was almost empty. With everyone working together to make our school a better place, the slop monster didn’t stand a chance.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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