HOUSTON -- It is not going to change the taste of cafeteria food, but the Houston Independent School District is considering a plan to provide more environmentally friendly lunch trays for elementary schools, KPRC Local 2 reported in its Going Green series.

On Thursday, the school board will vote on replacing Styrofoam lunch trays with trays that are more biodegradable and won't add to the long-term waste in area landfills.

"For a long time, we used these type of Styrofoam trays, that if you throw them in a landfill, they take up to 400 years to biodegrade," said HISD spokesman Terry Abbott.

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The new trays would degrade in nine months, according to Abbott.

As the state's largest school district, HISD serves about 200,000 meals to students during the regular academic year, which is a lot of plastic tossed into trash cans.

HISD trustees have been considering the switch for some time, but decided to speed up making a decision after receiving letters and phone calls from students concerned about the environment.

One student in particular helped sway the school board.

In May, 10-year-old Lovett Elementary student Austin Fendley attended a school board meeting and told the board what he learned during a science project.

"I am very concerned about the use of Styrofoam trays in school cafeterias. I know that the trays are cheap and disposable," Fendley told the board. "But they create a huge environmental problem and potential health hazards for children and adults who eat off these trays."

Once approved, the district would phase in the trays on the elementary level and then expand the program to all campuses.

Taxpayers would pay about $300,000 extra each year for the new lunch trays.

The school district said it believes that the benefit to the environment far outweighs the extra expense.