You know those signs in National Parks reminding you to “carry out what you carry in?” How about making that your mantra when taking your lunch to work, or packing school lunch for kids? Pack all food and beverages in reusable containers and carry them in a reusable sack or lunchbox, and leave no waste behind. Once you are set up with your gear, it’s easy…and cheaper than buying disposable products and heavily-packaged convenience items. Especially when you buy foods in bulk and make your own individual portions.
Daily lunch waste from workplaces and schools accounts for more than 7 billion pounds of trash. Just think of what your typical lunch waste may be and how much that adds up when everyone else has that much waste too. It’s staggering the amount of unnecessary trash that can be avoided! So,make a commitment to reverse the trend and think of how empty those landfills and incinerators will be!
Consider these facts:
- Close to 2.7 billion juice boxes end up in landfills every year.
- Each person who brings a brown-bag lunch every day will generate 67 pounds of waste in a year – that’s 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for an average-sized school!
- Each year the U.S. consumes over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps.
- A disposable lunch costs $4.02 per day, versus $2.65 for a waste-free lunch.
