Nothing wasted as kids unwrap

NUDE Food November encouraged a 40 per cent cut in lunchbox wrappers at Lighthouse Christian College.
The Keysborough school participated in the Greater Dandenong Council and Nude Food Movers challenge alongside Carwatha College and Athol Road, Harrisfield, Springvale Rise, St Elizabeht’s, St Gerard’s and St Mary’s primary schools.
Participants learnt how to pack healthy, waste-free lunches and received Nude Food resources kits.
Teachers performed pop lunchbox inspections to see how many packets were in students’ lunchboxes on a normal day.
They revealed 4765 wrappers and packets in the lunchboxes of 2217 Greater Dandenong primary school students in one day.
Based on these figures, an average school lunchbox contains at least 2.15 pieces of packaging waste every day – 430 over the course of a year.
During the challenge, from 4 to 11 November, teachers completed a second inspection and registered a drop in waste to 1.63 pieces per student.
Lighthouse Christian College reduced its wrappers from 633 across 208 students to 383 – a 40 per cent drop to 1.2 packers per student.
The participating classes received a visit from the council’s Waste Education Team and Bike n Blend, and pedal-powered their own nude food.
Class 5/6 A at Athol Road Primary School had the highest reduction of packets for a single class at 2.44 packets per student.