School Food Service

The world is awash in toxic and polluting single-use plastics made from hazardous chemicals that are contaminating our ecosystems, our communities and our bodies.

380 million metric tons of plastic are produced each year.
The US plastic recycling rate has dropped below 6%!

​US Schools serve 7.35 billion meals annually.  Those meals are packed with non-biodegradable  Single-use plastics (SUPs) that make a significant contribution to the US plastic waste stream and the staggering global plastic pollution problem.  Most of those SUPs end up in a landfill or environment. 

Plastic Free Lunch Day provides students an opportunity to learn about plastic pollution and take meaningful plastic-reduction action.  One Plastic Free Lunch Day leads to another and creates a vision and actionable ideas to move forward in a just and sustainable way.

• Making & disposing of plastic is fueling extreme weather events.
• Plastics are made from fossil fuels.
• Plastics are the 5th largest contributor of harmful gas emissions.
• Less than 6% of plastic is recycled in the US.
• Plastic kills 100,000 marine animals every year.
• The US creates more plastic waste than any other nation.
• Plastic never goes away. It degrades into micro and nanoplastics.
• Scientists have found micro and nanoplastics in the deepest parts of the ocean, and in our soil, food, water and air.
• Recent studies have also found micro and nanoplastics in our bodies: our gut, our tissues, our poop, our blood, the deepest parts of our lungs!
• We are all eating and breathing microplastics.

Each year, we produce over 350 million metric tons of plastic; more than 40% of this is single-use plastic–plastic packaging and foodware that is used for less than 20 minutes. Because plastic is not recyclable, most discarded plastic is sent to landfills or “leaks” into the natural environment.

Plastic does not biodegrade. Instead it breaks or fragments into small particles called microplastics and then into smaller particles called nanoplastics. Because plastic is made from fossil fuels and thousands of persistent toxic chemicals, they transfer thousands of migrating chemicals into our food during use. After disposal and fragmentation, plastic particles carry and distribute these toxic chemicals to every inch of the globe.

​Scientists have found micro and nanoplastics in our digestive tract, deep in our lung tissue, in the placenta, and circulating in our blood. Nanoplastics deliver thousands of toxic chemicals directly to the organs, tissues, and cells in our bodies. We now face the public health crisis of our time.

School cafeterias serve over 40 million meals a day and make a large contribution to the plastic waste stream. School cafeterias are a great place to begin reducing single-use plastics, while also protecting the health of our students–society’s most vulnerable members. Plastic free lunch day is a first step that results in useful photos and data but, most importantly, it shows everyone that food dispensing and eating does not require plastic!