This weeks Change the World Wednesday Challenge is to make a waste free lunch.
Five mornings a week I make up packed lunches for myself and our two children hence this challenge is particularly appropriate. In terms of packaging, this is the most wasteful meal of our day and it can only be marked as a "fail - must try harder".
But I'll start with the good bits. I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to packed lunches: the cornerstone of any packed lunch should be a piece. It can be a cheese piece, jeely piece, cheese and jeely piece or any other type of piece: egg, ham, tuna, banana - anything that fits between two slices of bread. We do well here with home made bread. It has flour, yeast, water, sugar and salt. No preservatives, no additives, no packaging (the flour comes in biodegradable paper bags) and no transportation.
So far so good but when all the additional things are included we start to go down hill. The children take refillable water bottles to school for during the day but single use cartons of fruit juice for lunch. You know the type: plasticy cardboard cartons with a plastic straw in a polythene wrapper glued to the side. Then there are crisps, raisins or other dried fruit, pots of yoghurt and cereal bars or biscuits - not everything every day but two or three from the list. Almost all have packaging.
We have tried buying in bulk then filling reusable containers but the kids keep losing lids or breaking the containers. Understandably, they have more important things to do at lunch time, like playing hopscotch, skipping or football, rather than putting their lunch things away properly.
I look forward to reading other posts on this challenge in the hope of gaining inspiration.
Related links: If you don't know what a jeelly piece is, this link may help:Five mornings a week I make up packed lunches for myself and our two children hence this challenge is particularly appropriate. In terms of packaging, this is the most wasteful meal of our day and it can only be marked as a "fail - must try harder".
But I'll start with the good bits. I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to packed lunches: the cornerstone of any packed lunch should be a piece. It can be a cheese piece, jeely piece, cheese and jeely piece or any other type of piece: egg, ham, tuna, banana - anything that fits between two slices of bread. We do well here with home made bread. It has flour, yeast, water, sugar and salt. No preservatives, no additives, no packaging (the flour comes in biodegradable paper bags) and no transportation.
So far so good but when all the additional things are included we start to go down hill. The children take refillable water bottles to school for during the day but single use cartons of fruit juice for lunch. You know the type: plasticy cardboard cartons with a plastic straw in a polythene wrapper glued to the side. Then there are crisps, raisins or other dried fruit, pots of yoghurt and cereal bars or biscuits - not everything every day but two or three from the list. Almost all have packaging.
We have tried buying in bulk then filling reusable containers but the kids keep losing lids or breaking the containers. Understandably, they have more important things to do at lunch time, like playing hopscotch, skipping or football, rather than putting their lunch things away properly.
I look forward to reading other posts on this challenge in the hope of gaining inspiration.
