School children tuck into waste free lunch

Caerphilly County Borough Council's waste minimisation team has put together a toolkit to help schools plan and run a successful waste-free lunch scheme. The toolkit (on CD ROM) includes lots of useful documents for teachers, such as information on how to carry out a waste-audit and a spreadsheet to record data and calculate results. There is also a section for parents with ideas and tips on how to pack a healthy, waste-free lunch. In Tir-y-Berth Primary, packed lunch and canteen waste was weighed on a normal day (by members of the Eco-Council and Caerphilly's waste team), and again after the school implemented some of the ideas on the disk. The effort put in by staff, pupils and parents resulted in a reduction of more than 20% (4.5kg) on just one day. During the first waste audit they found half eaten sandwiches, biscuits and fruit so the school decided to compost leftover fruit, encourage use of reusable containers (instead of foil and cans) and hand out reward stickers to pupils who finished all of their meals. Sally Everson, teacher at Tir-y-Berth Primary School said: "The waste-free lunch project was fantastic and really helped the children acknowledge the impact they can have on reducing waste in school. It is a project we are going to continue and develop alongside the school council." For more information on the waste-free lunch scheme, please contact Caerphilly's Waste Minimisation Team on 01495 235428.