Walton Elementary is moving towards a "Litterless" lunch practice.
Children will be asked to bring home all of their litter, including juice boxes and food scraps, on a daily basis. In short, kids pack home what they pack to school. It's like camping in the woods!
Our goal is to reduce the amount of recycling, garbage and resulting fruit flies and odours in our building.
With 540 students, our school is overwhelmed with the amount of waste generated daily that includes juice boxes and food scraps. The management of the compost and recycling program is also occupying a lot of instructional time. In short, it has been very difficult maintaining a clean learning environment. The Metro Vancouver composting program has been particularly challenging for our school.
Beginning Monday, November 30th, Walton will become a "Litterless" Lunch place. Students will bring home their food scraps and recycling for disposal on a daily basis. This will greatly help alleviate the issues within the classroom and school.
For example:
A child brings a thermos of noodles; a Ziploc bag of fruit; a juice box; and a banana to school.
The child will bring home the empty thermos; Ziploc bag containing the empty juice box and banana peel. These items are disposed at home.
Another child brings a plastic Tupperware container with a sandwich, a Ziploc bag of cookies, an apple and a juice pouch.
The child will bring home the uneaten cookies, Ziploc bag with the apple core and empty juice pouch in the Tupperware container. These items are disposed of at home.
Staff will spend the next few weeks working with the children on how to take home their recycling and compost. Our goal is to fully implement our practice on Monday, November 30th. Thank you in advance for your support.
This also gives parents an opportunity to monitor how much of their child's lunch is eaten at school. We've noticed lots of half eaten sandwiches in the compost bin.