Take Action
How to start a lunch tray project:
By Penn Wooldridge
1. Talk to other students, teachers, your principal, parents, and anyone in your school community about your idea. Create a support group of sorts, find out who is interested in getting involved.
2. Get the idea approved by whom ever it may concern; your principal, cafeteria workers, your school district’s head of nutrition services or lunch program, etc. Make sure to get everyone on board before you work out details.
3. Create a plan and a budget. Where are you going to get your trays? How will the new trays affect how your cafeteria is set up? Does your school already have a dishwasher? Who is going to wash the dishes? Who is going to over look the new program to be sure everything is going smoothly?
4. Write a grant. Find out who in your area could supply you with the money you need to launch your project. I received my grant from the local waste management company. Maybe your school district has money set aside for projects such as yours.
5. Put your idea into action. Buy the supplies you need and make it happen.
Facts about Polystyrene
Styrofoam is a trademark of the Dow Company, but the material itself is called polystyrene. Like so many other plastics, it’s all around us – very commonly used in packing material in food trays and a wide variety of other products – even explosives such as napalm and hydrogen bombs!
The bad news is that polystyrene is manufactured from petroleum. It’s highly flammable and a chemical called benzene, which is a known human carcinogen (chemical which can cause cancer), is used in its production. Polystyrene foam, used commonly as padding in appliance packaging, takes an incredibly long time to break down in the environment and additionally, animals may ingest it which blocks their digestive tracts and ultimately causes starvation.
Given the nature of polystyrene, it’s surprising that such an energy intensive, oil sucking and toxic substance is allowed to be use as packaging for food; particularly for items such as meat where the food has direct contact with it. Nearly two dozen cities in the world have banned the use of polystyrene for this purpose.