Bit annoyed with school's lack of green thinking. AIBU?

[Butchmanda]

DS is in Year 6, brother left 2 years ago, so been associated with this school for quite some time. They have some really nice school trips. However, it's ALWAYS their policy to insist the kids bring food in disposable containers in plastic carrier bags. When lunch is done, everything is thrown away. (I've been on trips as a helper, and teachers provide a couple of bin liners and scoop up everything). Even food/drink not finished is chucked away, so no chance to save - for example - a piece of fruit or half bottle of water for the journey home.

I've always felt a very uneasy about this. I go to great lengths to reduce / reuse / recycle at home and so it makes me cringe to think of all this stuff going straight to landfill. (Maybe, depending on trip destination, there is chance to recycle the plastic bottles, but I somehow doubt it). If every child goes on a trip each half term, that's 6 trips a year x 7 years = 42 carrier bags etc to landfill in the course of primary school, per child. The school has 420 children. That's the school choosing to chuck 2,520 carrier bags a year.

Personally I think it's very crap! Especially when there is SO much in the news these days about the horrific effects plastic have on the environment and, particularly, on sealife.

Earlier this week my son had a trip. He decided he'd take a little backpack instead of a plastic bag, so that he wouldn't have to chuck stuff away. He's perfectly capable of being responsible for his belongings so I agreed. Apparently he was torn off a strip by his teacher for 'not doing as you were told' and made to put his lunch in a carrier bag which she provided (which he then had to bring home anyway, as his sandwich was in a Tupperware container).

I try to pick my battles and he's out of there soon, but I'm just annoyed - not for my son - but for their disregard for environmental issues. I really think it's about time they updated some of their habits.

I get that it might be a lot easier to just chuck stuff away instead of carrying it around all day, and there's less to leave behind on the train etc, but they always go on about being grown up and responsible, so these older kids can surely carry a small back pack. Before long they'll all be on buses and trains every morning commuting to secondary school.

Do other schools do this?

... sorry, NT child

... by "we' I mean parents. Teachers are forced to try and teach this stuff to 30 children

I’m with you OP, put it in writing to headteacher, it is a significant amount of waste, teaching kids that convenience is more important than pollution. Maybe simply needs to be re thought.
Kids are motivated to reduce reuse and recycle. Pretty sure they could throw away food waste and keep their bottles/ pots in their backpacks.

Yanbu. However, I find picking my battles with the school important. In your shoes I would drop them an email saying you take full responsibility for your child's lunch bag being reuseable and if it gets lost, that will be down to the child not the school.

Explain that while you understand one person might not make a huge difference, recycling and caring for the environment is something you feel strongly about.

If you are reasonable rather than going in all guns blazing about how much waste the school is producing, they are (ime) much more likely to let it slide with you. They might continue with other children but you cannot police what other parents do.

At many schools in my area the children have to drink any waste from packed lunches home "so the parents know what has been eaten" was the reasoning. Until someone from the council let slip that the schools had been told to reduce the amount of waste they were producing. It caused a major backlash from parents, and a situation like the one op described would just be seen as hypocritical.

Send him with his lunch in a brown paper bag (recycled paper obviously) , how much Tupperware do you think ends up in landfill and they don't want children eating on coaches in case it makes them such, they spill things or leave packaging on the coach. Teaching staff are not cabin crew and do not have to clean a coach after a trip

If you know a trip is coming up, save the empty bread bag to pack the sandwiches in, and save up small paper carrier bags from shopping. School trips are utterly frantic for teachers and helpers, without trying to carefully sort everyone’s recycling at the end of lunch. At our school, kids aren’t allowed to eat or drink anything on the coach so no point saving left over items

Our school does this.
My dds used to go to a summer scheme where they went on trips out and the kids all managed to look after their own lunch bags, no disposable stuff asked for.

Our school declared this to be their new policy from the last trip.... in a newsletter that contained a section about how they were becoming a more sustainable school.

How do we get kids to a) act sustainably and b) responsible for their own possessions
If we take those responsibilities away?

I know it's not easy planning these trips and I don't envy teachers but I don't think giving mixed messages helps in the long run.