Our school encourages parents to pack litter-free lunches. You know me, I love this idea, and we adhere to it as much as we can.
This means:
- a reusable, insulated lunch bag
- the main dish (sandwich, soup, hummus, whatever) is packed in a plastic food storage container (I would like to find an alternative to this.)
- fruit (is packed in its own skin, or if it’s cut up it is packed in a small container.)
- yogurt/applesauce is not purchased in small lunch-sized containers. We buy the bigger containers and take some out and put them into smaller ones for kids.
- no juice boxes. We pack water in a SIGG bottle, sometimes milk in a sippy thing.
- smaller desserts, such as cookies or raisins or goldfish crackers are also poured into smaller containers. Nothing comes individually packaged.
Naively, I thought all parents at our school were following the litter-free guideline as well. The last time I volunteered during a field trip I realized this wasn’t the case. I watched one kid in particular as she unpacked her lunch. Everything had a wrapper. The sandwich was in a zip-lock, she had a pudding tube and some chewy gummies and lor’ knows what else. By the time she was finished eating she had a pile of garbage that was bigger than her head.
I suggested (to the teacher) that we force the kids to keep their garbage in big clear bags to see how much accumulates by the end of the year. The class with the least amount of garbage wins. She didn’t go for it. ;)
Seriously, I don’t think packing a sandwich in a container is any more work than packing it in a baggie. What do you think?
Can you, or do you already, achieve a litter-free lunch for yourself and for your kids?
