Here's is a picture our S.E.E.K. took of a waste-free lunch at our school's waste-free lunch day.
You should have a waste-free lunch day at your school because waste-free lunches help the environment in many ways. Here are some of the ways in which a waste-free lunch day will help the environment:
- It creates less garbage. If you create less garbage, you will save landfill space, and you'll feel good about it, too.
- You'll also help the environment by saving electricity. This is important because fossil fuels are often burned (which causes global warming) to create electricity. Electricity is used to manufacture plastic bags, plastic utensils, and other disposable things people use in their lunches.
- You'll save trees because in order to have paper napkins and paper bags many trees are cut down.
- By highlighting the importance of bringing a waste-free lunch on one day, students will start bringing a waste-free lunch to school every day.
To get ready for our waste-free lunch day, here's what our S.E.E.K. did:
- We wrote scripts about why kids should pack waste-free lunches. We made two different scripts and here they are so that you can use them at your school:
Script #1
Script #2
- We used the scripts to make presentations in front of our
school (see the picture of us on the right). We presented the first script about a week before our waste-free lunch day. Then we presented the second script the day before our waste-free lunch day.
- We hung up signs around our school teaching people about waste-free lunch day. We downloaded the signs from the U.S. Environmental Agency's Pack a Waste-Free Lunch website. Here are some pictures of us hanging up the signs:
- During that time we also sent home a letter to all of the students that were the youngest or only child attending our school (to save paper which saves trees). We also printed the letter on recycled paper. We got most of the information in the letter from the U.S. Environmental Agency's Pack a Waste-Free Lunch website. Here is the letter we used. You can send it home too:
Waste-Free Lunch Letter
- Then about a day or two before waste-free lunch day we sent home a reminder with youngest and only students. Here is that reminder for you:
Waste-Free Lunch Day Reminder
- At the waste-free lunch day we made our goal to have two bags of garbage or less. We put all of the food that came from plants in a compost bin and the recyclable things in a recycling bin.
Some of the recyclable things we collected. |
Our compost bin where we collected heaps of compost. |
An inside look at our compost bin. |
These are some of the great waste-free lunches students in our school brought with them to our waste-free lunch day. Our day was a big success!
When you are planning your waste-free lunch day there are some things that you should tell kids to pack and some things you should tell them not to pack. Here are some of those things:
A waste-free lunch includes:
- Cloth napkins
- Reusable silverware
- A reusable lunch box
- Thermos or water bottle
- Reusable container
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A waste-free lunch doesn't include:
- Paper napkins
- Plastic utensils
- Paper bags
- Individually wrapped snacks and drinks
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Here are a few pictures of what you should and shouldn't bring. The item(s) on the right in each picture are what you should bring, the item(s) on the left in each picture are what you shouldn't bring:
Good luck! We hope you help your school become waste-free.
|Create a S.E.E.K. | |Sponsor a Waste-Free Lunch Day | |Earn a Certificate| |Celebrations At School| |3R's At School| |Saving Trees At School|
|Saving Electricity At School| | Saving Water At School|
Online Resources
"Pack a Waste-Free Lunch." U.S. Environmental Agency. 3 February 2007 <http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/education/lunch.htm>.
Images
All photographs on this page were taken by the creators of this website. February-March 2007.
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