Meeting with the Lunchbox School Canteen Area Manager

Through the bin audits done by the members of the Plastic Outta The Park campaign in the school, it became evident that a huge part of the plastic found in the bins after school was from the Lunch Box, salad boxes, and small plastic boxes and water bottles that they sell were most common.

This is a pressing issue for our group, so we organized a meeting with the people managing the Lunch Box. Claire, the Lunchbox area manager, was sent down to talk to us about alternative packaging and other ways in which the Lunch Box can turn plastic free.

We presented Claire with alternatives like decomposable packaging from a company called down2earth materials (http://www.down2earthmaterials.ie/) and ideas like students bringing in their own lunch boxes for things like salads or hot food that are currently being packaged in plastic. Claire agreed students bringing their own containers would be favorable due to it lessening their workload too as they wouldn’t have to put time into packaging every individual food.

We found out that they are already committed to the idea of not using single use plastic and have already replaced some previously plastic packaging into biodegradable packaging in other schools. They also changed the soup packaging within our school a while ago to not include plastic.

We realized our problems were a lack of suitable bins for new packaging and the lack of space for the Lunch Box storage. Once we solve these the Lunch Box should be able to have the ability to fully rid their products in our school of plastic. We will provide the solution and alternatives and will work together with them towards our shared goal of not using single use plastic.