Litter-less lunch held at St. Francis

A recent eco-friendly project that’s been sweeping schools and workplaces across North America is the litter-less lunch.
Over the past couple of years, students and workers have started to become more conscious of the amount of waste that’s produced from their brown-bag lunch.
The excessive use of convenient and individual packaging really has started to draw attention to itself—and is begging to be taken care of.
St. Francis School has decided to jump with the trend by co-ordinating its own litter-less lunch day, which ran there yesterday.
Principal Teresa Dennis and Sarah Noonan’s Grade 7/8 class were at the forefront of this attempt to decrease the size of the school’s ecological footprint.
Dennis approached the class and proposed the idea of holding a “green day.” The idea of having a litter-less lunch followed suit.
The class promoted the activity by hanging posters, and also made announcements in the morning encouraging the whole school to bring plastic containers instead of plastic bags, and reusable juice containers instead of juice boxes.
“A litter-less lunch is when you try to eliminate any kind of garbage or wrappers that come with they food that we buy,” noted student Jilayne Derksen.
“It helps to save the environment by reducing the amount of waste that is being put into the landfill,” she stressed.
Each class at St. Francis produces, on average, about two pails of garbage during the lunch hour—and sometimes even double that on special hot lunch days like “Chinese food day.”
Their goal was to reduce that amount as much as they could.
“We’re just trying to do as much as we can,” said Casey Badiuk, another student in Noonan’s class. “I don’t think we really have a set goal. We’re just trying to make a difference—even if it’s only a little difference.”
During lunch, the students of Noonan’s class went around to each and every class, eating their lunch with them and monitoring the participants to ensure no one was cheating.
“It was a good idea for the students from my class to split themselves up in the school to make sure all the classes knew the rules,” Noonan remarked.
“There was a little temptation to keep the garbage in their lunch bags or to stuff it in their pockets, but for the most part the kids were honest,” she added.
The students then went from class to class with Terry Wilson and gathered the garbage to weigh it. Then they recorded the data and tried to decide which class was the most successful in lowering the amount of waste from their lunches.
By the end of the weigh-in, it was reported that each class had half-a-pail of garbage or less.
The class that threw away the least amount of garbage was Mme. Quesnel’s Grade 5/6 French immersion class with a total weight of six ounces.
Though they were not the only class with six ounces of garbage, they were the largest class to achieve the feat so they will get to have a Dairy Queen Treatzza Pizza with their lunch tomorrow.
They also will receive an award to hang in their classroom.
Even though this was a one-day event and was treated as a competition with all students vying for the prize, everyone still is very optimistic all the classes will take the amount of garbage they produce more seriously.
Students claim that once you realize how much garbage there can be, as well as how little there can be, people tend to be much more conscientious when it comes to producing less waste and recycling more.
Derksen, Badiuk, and Alice Johnston all said that now that their class has really studied garbage and recycling, they all find themselves doing it almost subconsciously.
They all would describe recycling and reducing waste as very habit-forming.
Not only did the litter-less lunch encourage less waste, it also naturally encouraged students to bring in much healthier foods.
It was noticed that foods like fruits and vegetables naturally produce less waste, and many students opted to bring these types of foods instead of sugary and salty snacks.
The students admitted not everyone will be giving up unhealthy treats so easily because of this one day, but there is a hope that those who bring in these types of snacks will do so in reusable containers instead.
Johnston urged parents to buy treats in bigger boxes and then have the kids fill plastic containers with the contents instead of buying the “cute” little packages.
The 100-calorie snack packs and mini-cereal boxes should be avoided as they produce much more waste than the larger boxes. Plus it’s cheaper, too.
Besides their litter-less lunch, students also were credited if they wore the colour green yesterday. Derksen noted that colour shows they are all trying to be more eco-friendly.
Some students went above and beyond the green theme like Johnston, who wore a green shirt, brown pants, and a bird in her hair and went as a tree.
Others, who didn’t have any green clothing, but still wanted to support being eco-friendly, went to other measures. Badiuk, for instance, dressed in blue, exclaiming, “I’m supposed to be a recycling bin.”
It was a day of fun, learning, and saving the world and Noonan revelled in the event’s success.
“This was a successful idea and I think the kids really sold into it,” she enthused.
“I think they will make an effort now to pack lunches with less litter because they realized that with a little effort, they can create a fraction of the garbage,” Noonan added.