Waste Free Lunch

The Eco Club at School held a waste free lunch workshop on January 23rd 2008. The workshop was led by Sally Jackson from Global Action Plan on behalf of Devon County Council. It began with Sally asking the children how long each type of material - paper, material, metal, plastic and glass - takes to process and how long it takes to rot down. They learned that the longer the manufacturing process, the longer it takes to rot.

Sally also explained how plastic breaks up but doesn't actually ever disappear. She told us the rather sad tale of how turtles are seeing plastic bags floating in the sea and think they are jellyfish-they eat the bag, think they are full of food and then die of starvation. The children in groups then analysed a lunch box - noting the healthy and unhealthy foods, the cost of the food and the waste that would be left. They found that in general a healthier lunchbox produces less waste.
Class 2 and 3 both had a workshop recently run by Global Action Plan where they thought about bringing Waste Free Lunches to school.  The children considered the length of time it takes for some of the packaging in our lunch boxes to rot away.