The following article is written by Sue Mastyl for CBES Shoreline Magazine. Sue is one of the Shore’s foremost experts on recycling. In her column Recycling Corner, Sue offers great tips on how to reduce plastic consumption as we send our kids back to school.
With students, teachers, and staff heading back to school, it’s a good time to think about the plastic in school supplies, foodware, even our clothing, and what we can do to find alternatives. A recent webinar from the Plastic Pollution Coalition (https://youtu.be/e_aJdhyvWS8) outlined how we can rethink our practices, both for individual families and for school operations. Four organizations presented different approaches to reducing plastics in schools –
• Ahimsa (https://ahimsahome.com/) sells colorful stainless steel dishes (plates, bowls, cups, lunchboxes) for kids, and stainless steel cafeteria trays for schools.
Dr. Manasa Mantravadi, pediatrician and founder of Ahimsa, noted that the cafeteria is a school’s “single greatest source of carbon emissions, and the singlegreatest exposure for plastic chemicals.”
• Cafeteria Culture (https://www.cafeteriaculture.org/), has taught zero-waste education to thousands of public-school students, focusing on alternative solutions. Debby Lee Cohen, founder of Cafeteria Culture, described their success in New York City, starting in 2009 with TrayLess Tuesdays, when the city discarded 850,000 Styrofoam lunch trays every day. By 2015, Styrofoam was eliminated from all city schools, replaced with compostable plates. Their story is documented in the film, Microplastic Madness (https:// www.cafeteriaculture.org/microplastic-madness.html; free for all K-12 schools in October and November 2023). They also sponsor an annual national Plastic Free Lunch Day, which will be held this year on Nov.8, started by 5th-graders in one school, promoting alternatives such as serving unwrapped sandwiches from bulk containers, covered with foil until lunchtime; serving sauces and condiments from bulk containers, instead of individual packets; and providing utensils only upon request.
• Heather Itzla, founder of Wisdom Supply Company, a B-corporation selling plastic-free, vinyl-free, spiral-free school and office supplies, said they are transitioning to a nonprofit in 2024 to further the zero-waste approach, noting that you can’t start a zero-waste classroom, “by going out and buying a bunch of zero-waste stuff.” For 13 years, from preschool to 12th grade, “we are training children to be mindless consumers” with back-to-school shopping, 90% of which is plastic, packaged in plastic, backed by massive marketing, she noted. The key is raising awareness in classroom – “what did our parents and grandparents use?” she asked.
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