to think is just pants that dc's school do not have a bin for lunchbox detritus at lunchtime?

[TheCowCalledMeg]

Umm is this normal? There are bins for school dinners children but if you have something you want to bin it must stay in your lunch box- it does't matter what it is.

I say this after having:

A) been pissed all over by ds's juice box (why even bother putting the straw in it really?)
b)spent the last ten minutes clearing what appears to be the full contents of a yogurt out of every crevice of DD's lunch box.
c)gagged on the roasted garlic honky smell of very warm Hoormoose that the lid of ds's lunchbox lid was welded together with.... (I didn't have a diamond tipped angle grinder so it was hard that bit)

I was hoping to post this in the "I know I am right please everyone agree with me" topic but that appears to have been moved...meh...

[specialsubject]

give them less food?

[Goldmandra]

My DD2 is 10 and, for several years, has been responsible for cleaning out her own lunchbox. I introduced this because she wasn't putting the rubbish in the sandwich box as requested.

Her lunchbox is now a pleasure to clear out on the odd occasion that I do it because she takes care not to let things leak for her own benefit.

I think she started when she was about 6 or 7 but could have done it from younger I'm sure.

[Lemonsole]

I have to disagree with the poster who said, "but it's their job" of lunchtime supervisors. I'd rather they were supervising kids eating or playing, than trying to police three different bins to cover the recyclable from the landfill from the genuine food waste. Why should schools subsidise disposing of the remains of the often over-packaged convenience food that dominates lunch boxes?

School lunch = one plate; one scrape. Job done. It's clear to me that if you want to opt out of the meal service that us provided, you are responsible for it from start to finish. Even if your reasons for not having school lunches are very good ones, that's not an unreasonable expectation, surely.

If your kids are not respecting you by bringing home a smeary mess, then get them to clean it out. They'll soon learn.

[TattyDevine]

This shits me up the wall, but at my school it is thus:

Parents know what their kids are and are not eating. Give them one of your Mullerlights...they don't eat it - you know they are not eating it. Same with babybells, Frubes, you name it, these things are expensive so if they were binning it daily and you didn't know, you might be pissed I spose...

Ditto Ribena Plus Froot Shoots whatever else

School dinners - okay so they scrape but they created it in the first place so it's their responsibility

The "so you know what your child is eating" thing gives me the irates a bit, a totally eaten banana - don't want the skin, ta. Same with tangerines. If its half eaten, fair play, but eaten in full? What doesn't come home is gone? Bah.

[Startail]

Of course it would make more sense if all school food, plastic and paper waste was collected in school in proper comercial recycling bins, rather than carted home, where we have no plastic recycling. But when did common sense come into anything relating to schools and their interaction with the local council.

[TheCowCalledMeg]

I dont load my dc's lunch boxes unless you think a very small sarnie/fruit/yog/jelly etc is too much. I normally put drinks in a sports bottle and that leaks all over the shop- I had a box left over from the weekend hence that going in.

This was light hearted thread- nobody get your panties in a bunch.

Right, am armed with some top tips from here. Thank you canny mums....

[TheCowCalledMeg]

hahaha Lemonsole...hahaha I have smeary mess bastard kids...with NO MANNERS... You make me larf.

[Pigsmummy]

It's standard so you see what they have or haven't eaten.

[wonderingagain]

LOL it could be worse - they could give dcs doggy bags of school dinners to take home...

[lljkk]

There is a lad who brings in a fresh white paperbag every day with his lunch in it, come to think of it. Must have become his family solution.
I think DD's lunchbox cost £12, bet you could buy like 20 weeks worth of paper bags for that.

[Goldmandra]

I think DD's lunchbox cost £12, bet you could buy like 20 weeks worth of paper bags for that.

You can buy 250 for £16!

Here

[Lemonsole]

Of course they help to eat, if they need it. Opening yogurts, blah, blah.

It's simply that waste disposal is not (as I have already said a couple of times) a question of A bin; it would need at least two, plus suitable policing. Waste disposal costs, and in the current climate it's probably a good call by the school to prioritise areas that add value and to leave stuff that can be done at home to be done at home. Like emptying lunch boxes.

And yes, I do think that leaving the box in a smeary mess is disrespectful to whoever has made your lunch. Not sure what the point being made there was.

[RachelHRD]

Frozen yoghurt or fromage tubes save on yoghurt mess and help to keep the rest of the lunch cool. I use a sectioned Sistema box for DS which cuts down on packaging and what comes home. Agree it is useful to see what they have eaten and cuts down on school waste costs.

[LaGuardia]

Give a child with a lunchbox a bin to tip the contents into, and you can say goodbye to any Tupperware or spoons that you packed. Hummus in packed lunch? Seriously?

[Jengnr]

Christ, what a shit rule.

So they tell you what you can give them for dinner, then they don't even let them throw the rubbish in the bins? FFS!

[Anifrangapani]

By the time the lunchbox has been relocated and brought home it would be easier to identify new types antibiotics.

[jewelledsky]

We have about 60 school dinners in a school of 280. That leaves 220 packed lunches. That's 1,100 crisp packets, 1,100 juice cartons, 1,100 yogurt pots, 1,100 sandwich wrappers/fruit winder wrappers etc etc per week. Schools pay for waste collection. They can't afford to dispose of the sheer volume of waste produced by packed lunches.

Parents also need to see what kids are eating. I'm forever telling kids, who tell me they don't like ham/cheese/jam, to tell their parents to give them something else. However, children often say that because they are more interested in going out to play first than eating. Although I have every sympathy with the odd child who refuses to eat the un-microwaved Rustler or ginormous Ginsters pasty from the garage.

Too much waste going home means you've given them to much or they don't like what you've given them.

[Goldmandra]

Forgive the aside but

That's 1,100 crisp packets

really?

Do the overwhelming majority of the children really have a packet of crisps every day?

[jewelledsky]

Yes, actually, indeed they do. I take it you get the general idea? If it's not a packet of crisps, it's a packet of something else. Say a child had 3 bits of rubbish to dispose of daily. 3,300 a week. 13,200 a month. 128,700 every year. People don't see the bigger picture. Just what affects them.

[PiggyPlumPie]

Just reminded me of DS who threw his bag of sandwiches under a bush on the way home from school only for it to be found by my friend's dog when we were walking home a few days later!

[RedPencils]

You're asking for trouble putting yoghurt in. I don't take one to work because last time it exploded all over my desk. If I can't eat one without making a mess at 40 years old, then I've no chance with the DCs.

I make mine eat the leftovers as an after school snack [tightarse]