Students drop the wrappers

NUDE food was the order of the day recently when a Berwick school held a rubbish-free lunch.
Students at Berwick Fields Primary School were encouraged to leave their food wrappings at home as the school took part in the Rubbish Free Lunch Challenge.
The joint initiative of Sustainability Victoria and the Department of Education and Training encourages schools to enhance student understanding of how daily activities such as eating lunch, can affect the environment.
Teacher Lara Laverman said students played games as part of the challenge, counting how many wrappers they had and running them to the rubbish bin.
Ms Laverman said the school already had a ‘nude food’ policy but on Tuesday they reinforced the message.
Teacher and environmental specialist Joan Gaudion said the school had a strong waste management program with recycling supervisors, students from grade four, monitoring waste and any contaminates going to recycling.
“Students are also required to take any wrappers home in their lunch boxes but the school is very aware that this still means those wrappers are going to landfill and the School Wrapper Survey program is on-going to help reduce our waste to landfill and most importantly change attitudes,” she said.
According to the State Government, each Victorian school produces an average of 33 tonnes of rubbish a year, with a major source of rubbish and litter coming from the school canteen and processed food packaging.
The Rubbish Free Lunch Challenge targets lunch rubbish and offers a school curriculum-based solution to preventing rubbish and promoting healthy eating in schools.
Schools can enter two categories in the challenge for the chance to win $2000 for the best primary and secondary school beginner and advanced categories.
There are also runner-up prizes of $250.