Every April, Earth Day is an opportunity to pause, take stock of the state of our planet, and reconnect with the organizations doing the hard, sustained work of making it better. For UpClear, that means shining a light on Cafeteria Culture (CafCu) — a New York City-based nonprofit we’re proud to support as part of our membership in the 1% for the Planet initiative.
We recently sat down with Atsuko Quirk, Executive Director of Cafeteria Culture, and Rhonda Keyser, Program and Policy Director, to talk about their work, the issue of microplastics, and the documentary that’s been sparking conversations around the world since 2019: Microplastic Madness.
If you’re looking for ways to make a difference this Earth Month, this conversation offers some interesting insights and inspiring ideas.
One of CafCu’s core educational focuses is plastic pollution and the growing crisis of microplastics — tiny plastic fragments less than five millimeters in size that result from the breakdown of larger plastic items. The science on them is still evolving, and that’s precisely what makes the issue so urgent.
“Microplastics — and now nanoplastics, which are even smaller — are in our blood, our lungs, our brain…,” Atsuko explained. “We don’t know the full extent of the impact on human health. That’s the most recent concern: that we are all being tested.”
There are two distinct layers to the problem. The first is physical: microplastic particles aren’t round and smooth, and when they enter the body, they can damage cells. The second is chemical: plastics contain a cocktail of toxic additives, and researchers don’t yet fully understand how much of that chemical load is being absorbed by the human body. Early research has raised concerns about reproductive health, among other effects — but controlled studies are nearly impossible to conduct, since at this point, no one on earth has a body that’s entirely free of plastic.
The environmental side of the equation is equally alarming. Microplastics and nanoplastics are now present in the air, water, and soil. They flow from city streets and land into the ocean, where marine animals ingest them and die. As those larger pieces break down further, the contamination becomes more pervasive, not less.
“This is probably the most invasive pollution ever,” Atsuko said simply. “It is everywhere.”
In response to this crisis — and to a gap in accessible, compelling materials about it — Atsuko and Debby Lee Cohen co-directed Microplastic Madness, a feature-length documentary released in 2019. The film follows a group of fifth graders at P.S. 15 in Brooklyn as they dive deep into the roots of plastic pollution, collect their own local data, and take their findings all the way to City Hall.
The school was one CafCu had worked with before, but when the team arrived for filming, they found something special. “The community had such a strong tie,” Atsuko recalled. “Adults were 150% caring — not just teachers, but custodians, kitchen staff. Everybody was all in together. And the kids were just so open and amazing.”
Atsuko, who had started her filmmaking journey creating horror films in the 1980s, knew the moment called for something more than a program video. “There were no materials — no video, nothing — that explained this problem from an entry point all the way to the deeper roots, in a way any elementary school student could understand. That’s what we really aimed to create.”
The film uses stop-motion animation to make complex scientific content accessible, while keeping it genuinely engaging for adult audiences too. Rhonda, who joined CafCu after the film was made, described what she loves about it: “There’s a lot of really complicated technical information in there — but it’s completely digestible for students, while still being informative and engaging for adults. It meets you at whatever level you’re at.”
Atsuko also made a deliberate filmmaking choice to help audiences feel connected to the students on screen. “I wanted the audience to feel like they were in the classroom together with these kids,” she said. “I would run up and get physically close to them — that physical proximity really makes you feel like you’re actually with them.”
The result speaks for itself. Microplastic Madness has screened at more than 60 film festivals across the globe, won 8 awards — including the Best Documentary Feature Award from the Youth Jury at the Children’s Film Festival Seattle and the Grand Jury Award at the Greenpoint Film Festival — and has been viewed in over 45 countries. CafCu chose to self-distribute the film, a decision Atsuko is proud of: it allows them to connect directly with the educators, organizations, and communities screening it. To date, it has accumulated more than 120,000 verified views, supported by over 400 live Q&A sessions around the world.
And it remains as relevant as ever — despite being released seven years ago. “We were very careful about that,” Atsuko said. “This is about plastic, yes — but it’s also about what it means to raise your voice. What it means to make systemic change. That was the underlying theme, especially for students who come from backgrounds where the system isn’t working for them.”
Microplastic Madness isn’t just an educational film — it’s one piece of a larger, data-driven campaign to actually reduce plastic in New York City schools.
In 2022, CafCu launched Plastic Free Lunch Day in approximately 700 NYC public schools, designating one day per month where school lunches would be served without any single-use plastic. Rhonda walked us through what’s happened since:
When Plastic Free Lunch Day launched, the average number of single-use plastic pieces per school meal in NYC was 5.7. By 2024 — just two years later — that number had dropped to 1.8 on an ordinary school day, not even on a designated plastic-free day. The initiative has reduced at least 32 million single-use plastic items from school lunches, a figure Rhonda called “a very modest estimate.”
Plastic Free Lunch Day now reaches 4,103 schools nationally. And CafCu’s 2024-2025 impact report shows an overall 68% reduction in average single-use plastic items per student across standard NYC public school kitchen service sites.
The key, Rhonda emphasized, isn’t guilt or gotcha moments. It’s a long-standing, trust-based relationship with the NYC Office of Food and Nutrition Services, built over years of collaborative waste audits, video documentation, and shared problem-solving. “What we do is showing school systems that it’s possible to serve healthy, nutritious, appealing, safe meals without single-use plastic packaging,” she said. “And we’re doing it in a cooperative, fun way.”
That relationship has also recently opened a new door: CafCu is currently piloting their Mindful Choice Meals program — a food waste reduction initiative — in all 32 NYC school districts, an expansion that arrived faster than they ever expected. On average, the program has led to a 35–50% reduction in cafeteria food waste, with students eating significantly more of what’s on their plates.
Microplastic Madness is available to screen through CafCu’s self-distribution model, with options for different audiences:
For those of us not working directly in schools, Atsuko offered a challenge: spend one week collecting every piece of plastic waste you generate. Save it. Lay it out. Take a photograph.
“You will really notice: this is something I can reduce starting today with my own decisions. This is something the store needs to reduce. This is something the government needs to do something about,” she said. “You’ll start to understand who is actually in charge of the decision to have that plastic item in your house.”
From there, she encourages writing directly to the manufacturers of products you love that come in unnecessary packaging. And within any group you’re part of — a company, a community organization, a school — consider organizing your own plastic-free lunch day. Not only does it help reduce plastic waste in a small way, but the hands-on experience can shift thinking for you and your peers.
Cafeteria Culture started in 2009 with a troubling discovery: New York City public schools were using more than 850,000 polystyrene trays per day. Stack them up, and you’d have a column more than eight and a half times the height of the Empire State Building — every single day.
The organization’s founding director, the late Debby Lee Cohen, set out to change that. But CafCu quickly became something bigger than a campaign against Styrofoam. As Atsuko explained, eliminating the trays was never the actual goal. The goal was to improve the mealtime experience for students — and to build a culture of gratitude, awareness, and civic responsibility around it.
“When I started, I counted only five students out of ninety-five who thanked the lunch ladies,” Atsuko shared. “That bothered me. There’s bigger change that needs to happen here.”
Today, CafCu operates across 750 New York City public schools, reaching more than 400,000 students with programs that blend environmental science, citizen journalism, and real policy advocacy. Their students don’t just learn about climate change — they take action to fight it. They testify at City Council hearings, conduct waste audits, and push for systemic change at the institutional level. As Rhonda put it, “Students in our programs don’t get climate grief, because they are always engaged in solutions.”
It’s a model built on a powerful belief: that the students most impacted by environmental injustice — including those in public housing and temporary shelters — are also the ones most capable of changing the systems around them.
UpClear’s support of Cafeteria Culture goes beyond financial membership. Through our 1% for the Planet commitment, we’ve worked alongside CafCu to aid in the redevelopment of their website — connecting them with our digital agency partner, e9 digital, and contributing as a consultant throughout the process. The new site better reflects the scope and impact of their work and makes their programs and resources more accessible to educators, policymakers, and communities around the world.
Several UpClear team members have also volunteered directly with CafCu’s waste audit programs in NYC schools — and if you’re interested in doing the same, they’re actively looking for volunteers as their upcoming audit season gets underway.
We support CafCu because their work is a reminder that meaningful change happens at the intersection of data, education, and genuine trust-building — values that resonate with how we think about our own work at UpClear. The problems they’re tackling are real and urgent. And the students they’re working with are already building the solutions.
To learn more about Cafeteria Culture, screen Microplastic Madness, or support their work, visit cafeteriaculture.org. Follow them on Instagram at @CafCu and on YouTube at CafCu Media.
