To think "fuck off Eco lunch box"?

[VivaLeBeaver]

I mean the standard lunch box food police is bad enough. Not allowed xyz in pack up.

But for the next two weeks we have to have no packaging waste in the lunch box either. So nothing in individual wrappers, sandwich bags, etc. Ater the two weeks experiment is up apparently it's fine to using as many cheap plastic bags, bits of cling film as you can cram in the box.

Do the school really thing I'm going to bung sandwiches, cucumber, pepper strips, satay and illegal cake in one Tupperware box with no method of wrapping them?

Dd came home today with no empty sandwich bags which is unusual. Apparently the kids with rubbish at the end of lunch have to put their rubbish in a big bag so at the end of the trial they can see how much they're damaging the world.

The sandwich bags I buy cost 21p for a roll that last for weeks and weeks. I use 2 bags a day - one for teh sandwich and one for cucumber/pepper. Everything is then put in one large tupperware box. If I didn't put the sandwich in a bag it would come apart and be smeared round the box.

At 21p for a roll of sandwich bags and one term left at primary school it didn't seem worthwhile going out and spending money on an assortment of small boxes.

But I see IShallWearMidnight's post about needing small boxes for cookery class ingredients in secondary school so maybe I'll get some and try it. Won't be in time for next week though.

I certainly wouldn't say anything to the school about it. I don't really mind them doing it as long as they don't expect me to partake. DD says there's no sanctions for her apart from a dinner lady who was nagging her to "tell your mum blah, blah, blah".

DDs have never needed a load of boxes for Food Tech. One v large box for bringing home the offerings, and you pack the ingredients in it - flour goes in a sandwich bag, egg goes in the flour. If it's a cake, butter goes in with the sugar, if not it gets wrapped in a tiny bit of cling film and bungee in the flour/egg bag. Any other ingredients get packed round, and if the egg still looks like it could make a bid for freedom, you bung a couple of tea towels in.

21p for a big roll of bags?
How many one hundred perhaps?

So if you're using 10 a day then you would need to buy 4 of these rolls over the course of a school year coming in at under a pound.

I don't blame you in terms of cost, but either you want to be green or you don't.

What surprises me are the number of people who don't have little plastic pots for leftovers, sauces, portions of rice or pasta etc.. for their fridge.

Do you not keep leftovers, or just store them in the fridge in a dish with clingfilm over it?

Energy and resources to reuse them?

A small amount of water (doesn't have to be hot) a quick swish out to get rid of crumbs and then clean maybe once or twice a week with a little bit of detergent?

There is no comparison between this and using and then throwing away little plastic bags every day and it is ludicrous to suggest there is!

Leftovers go in the fridge in a dish. Don't usually bother putting clingfilm over.

I have to admit I have no idea about the packing of my son's school lunchboxes. My husband does them. They have the compartmenty ones.

OP - if you don't want to participate, don't. Your choice. I don't like the sneering from some posters though, as this will probably have been organised at least partly by the children.

Not sure about Cavalry's argument either - that because we can't change the big things we shouldn't bother with the little ones either. Cavalry - if you look at the site I linked to upthread you will see that they do talk about many of the other things that you mentioned.

Obviously whether one parent wraps sandwiches in clingfilm or not will not make a difference. The Eco Schools thing is more about awareness though, in the long term. It's part of educating the children to at least think about the choices that they make.

But then don't you have dried out compromised food in your fridge; similar to the problems you're saying you would have if you didn't individually package the components of your DCs lunch?

I realise the food in the fridge doesn't move around, but how many sandwiches really get tossed about before eating?

You hang it on a peg and then take it down to bring to the lunch hall.

I'm dreading dd going to school in September. I'm sure I'll fall foul of the food police and now there's packaging police to worry about as well. I feel stressed out at the thought of it.

Neurotic don't be stressed about it.

People are making far too big a deal of it, they really are.
Mountain and molehill comes to mind.

If you give your child a reasonably balanced packed lunch, there'll be no problem and this whole green packaging lark is just something that OP's DCs school is doing for a short while.

I just wouldn't do it. Who else thinks that the teachers will still be bringing their cling-filmed sandwiches and chocolate bars in wrappers? If they're happy to display their wrapper-free lunches for the parents to inspect then I'd be happy to comply with their request also.

DamnBamboo - judging by the state of any uneaten food we get back, I'd say my kids' lunchboxes get kicked about quite a bit.

The teachers are probably too busy relaxing with their picnic hampers full of individually wrapped imported goods. They've thought this up to annoy you. Why don't you go and ask to inspect their lunches?

For those with dc's starting school, really don't worry. My ds's school has only two restrictions on lunch boxes - no bottles or cans and no sweets. I've sent in cakes/biscuits/crisps/popcorn (not all on the same day ).

And, while there are no restrictions on packaging I do use boxes etc as I would hate lots of waste and think clingfilm is the devils work as I can't use it properly

Packed lunches are a food safety nightmare without having room temperature food surrunded by air and all it's lovely deteriorating properties.

If something is tightly wrapped in cling film or a plastic bag it's far less likely to develop harmful bacteria.

If I were you op, I would send in Sandwiches made with Stinking Bishop and egg, some peeled apple (too many pesticides in peel) then keep your dh away from school with d&v for the rest of the week.

It's a diarrhoea and vomiting explosion waiting to happen.

Food safety should be a higher priority than wrapping.

HereComesTheCavalry love the Prius comparison.

Actually you should just refuse to agree to this unless the school provides refrigeration for the lunches.

If the school is really keen to demonstrate its green credentials you could ask the staff to do a graph on how they travel to their work and what the staff eat during the school day and how it's packaged!

Too funny! The school is doing this...I doubt it. I'm sure it is the government's requirement for all schools to attain Green Flag status and therefore participate in 'Waste Week'. A child in the class next to mine has nicknamed it 'Waste of time week'. These agendas come from outside the school. If you hate it, write to your MSP or MP. They control these policies.

What about wrapping the sandwich and veg in two large lettuce leaves? Very green indeed

that's a shockingly bad idea.

In our household, we reuse tin foil, plastic sandwich bags and greaseproof paper.
If they took ours and put in in a big bag, we would have to use new every time.

Not everyone damages the planet by using new every time.
We can get quite a few uses out of each item - DH washes it up when he washes the pots.
( that's how to be environmentally friendly and keep your food separate)

OFSTED,Tick in the box - Outstanding school.
Schools have to do all these stupid things to meet OFSTED standards.

I'd be tempted to fill the lunchbox to the brim with chocolate buttons.

Could you do toasted sandwiches, perhaps? Also, send in while pepper and whole cucumber and ask your child to have a teacher help him or her cut it up.

i wísh ofsted would tell them what to do to meet their standards - they don;t seem to be able to work it out on their own.

We've had a litterless lunch policy in our schools for years. There was a lot of backlash at first and the initial outlay is EXPENSIVE but you'll be saving money in the long run because you're not using foil, plastic wrap, baggies and you can buy things in bulk to put into little containers. Get a soft sided lunch box like this one and a water bottle like this and then lots of little Tupperware-type containers ( I have about 30 for my three kids). Label everything with a permanent marker or labels and teach your kids how to put sandwich crusts, apple cores etc. BACK into the containers and how to seal them again so their lunchbox doesn't get all messy.
Spend Sunday evening doing lunch prep (chopping veg, slicing oranges/washing grapes, baking cookies, cubing cheese or what-have-you and prefilling all those little containers). Then all you need to do is grab a bunch of containers from the fridge in the morning and you're good to go.

Saves money and better for the environment. Give it a go!

I don't see the problem with this. I have 2 DCs who take packed lunches and we use re-usable packaging every day. We use small klipsafe tupperware things like this for yogurt (usually plain decanted from a big pot with a few frozen rapberries or blackberries or raisins chucked in), cucumber/carrot/sweetcorn/tomatoes, the piece of fruit is fine unwrapped and the sandwich goes in a re-wrap it. Pasta or rice salad can go in a slightly bigger pot & homemade cake can go in a pot. I don't send crisps or bought biscuits/cake. The whole lunch goes in a lunch bag with a freezer pack to keep it cool and guard against food poisoning. One child gets water from a jug at school, the other takes a fruitshoot-sized bottle of tap water in the bag that comes home afterwards and gets washed and re-used.

It's not rocket science.

McDonald's Happy Meals this week come with a dividable sandwich box as the toy... there's an ironic solution for you

Why not just ban lunch altogether and solve obesity as well?