“Ziplocs are the biggest misstep,” said Julie Corbett, a mother in Oakland, Calif., whose two girls attend a school with an eco-friendly lunch policy. In school years past, she said, many a morning came unhinged when the girls were sent to school with disposable sandwich bags.
“That’s when the kids have meltdowns, because they don’t want to be shamed at school,” Ms. Corbett said. “It’s a big deal.”
…Judith Wagner, a professor of education at Whittier College in California who directs its laboratory school for elementary and middle-school children, has also been struggling with how to get parents’ support for less wasteful lunches.
“Parents will say things like, ‘Well, I want her to have a choice, and if I put in a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich and a ham sandwich, she has a choice,’ ” Professor Wagner said. “And each one comes in its own separate plastic bag.”
What comes next, she said, is a hard call. “Do you go back to the parents and say, ‘Gosh, can you rethink the plastic bags and all this food?’ Or do you talk to the children, and you make the children feel guilty because they’re throwing this all away?”
… Ms. Corbett, the Oakland parent, said the social pressure her children felt regarding recyclable products was palpable.
Still, she says, plasticware can be a pain to clean, and is not cheap. When she thinks it is likely that her daughters will lose the containers — if, for instance, they’re going on a field trip — she uses waxed-paper sleeves, like the kind bakeries use for cookies, to hold sandwiches instead.
“It’s still a no-no because you’re still having to throw that away, but it is biodegradable, it does compost, so you’re not as guilty,” she said.
Funny how for years we've been told that schools can't discipline students who come to school dressed like pr0n stars and talking like rap stars, but come to school with a paper lunch bag and watch the Wrath of Gaia rain down.
Thanks for posting this, Mr. Stuttaford. I've been hoping it'd get the derisive attention it deserves.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBecause looking like a pr0n star and talking like a rap star aren't in-congruent with becoming a ward of the ecclesiastical State, Gaia's vicar on her Earth. This is the true goal of the State's 'schools'.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYesterday's Marxists, today's Environmentalists...complete with their own anti-religion.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWatermelons. Green on the outside, but Red on the inside.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHome schooling would eliminate the problem. And all the additional guilt surely induced by using petroleum products to commute would be gone as well.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExactly. Home-schooling is the answer. No matter how fashions change, the state will always be jamming some kind of irrational quasi-religious twaddle down our children's throats. People need to realize that the system can't be fixed--it needs to be abandoned.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOutrageous...the gods of recycling are rising.
Just Thursday at lunch, in my work's cafeteria, as I'm walking to the trash, I'm met by 2 college kids in green t-shirts emblazoned with the recycling arrows. I figure, "Probably doing some idiot study on how much food is tossed out."
Better than that!
With gloved hands, they take my trash, open and say, "Put the garbage in here," indicating the trash, "but put the styrofoam here for recycling."
My own work has surrendered to this lunacy. So Friday, after lunch, I went up to the trash bin and...yup...dumped my entire lunch into the trash.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAny chance of getting the ACLU et al to file a law suit concerning this and the separation of church and state Crickets...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe don't really care if your kid learns anything at school. Just don't send them here with a zip-lock bag or you shall be punished. Last time I checked it was so difficult to clean that reusable plastic container. Does anyone want to do anything anymore. THROW IT IN THE DISHWASHER, MORON!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUm.. missing the point, much? The point being a hysteria so pervasive that kids are terrified of being harassed and shamed about how they keep their sandwiches from drying out, of all ridiculous things. The concept of "mind your own business" obviously means nothing to their schoolmates, who will no doubt grow up to be a most useful and satisfactory crop of bullies and informers.
Reusable sandwich boxes and dishwashers -- and I imagine the Recyclists don't much like dishwashers either -- are neither here nor there.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI was wondering when they would get around to micromanaging lunches from home, now that they've done everything they can to control what kids on the school lunch program eat.
If it were just a matter of trash, they could instruct the students to take the ziplock and other packaging home inside of the reusable lunchbox. But it's not really about the trash, is it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes: it is important that we shame the children who bring the wrong sort of lunches.
Because, after all, teaching PARENTS is what public schools are *for*.
No?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is worse than this. The god of Green is so demanding that nothing we do is ever enough. We cannot rid the world of our own evil existence quickly enough.
I just wrote on this, comparing Green to proper, biblical idolatry, here.
External Link
I welcome your thoughts!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePolitics has taken over the American education system and most parents never saw it coming. Children have difficulty focusing on reading, writing and arithmetic because their attention has been redirected by liberal educators to saving the planet, obesity, poverty, global citizenship, healthcare, illegal immigration and rallying around the teachers unions. Our children aren't encouraged to do the things children should do, but rather to do the things adults do. Instead of educating children, we're educating mini-me's.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJenna, you are my favorite commenter.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man." -- St Francis Xavier
God-free religion is upon us. Whatever happened to separation of church and state?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJohnnie B Goode, that is a major nono. You should sort your trash and throw everything into its proper bin. Styrofoam into the regular trash, and YOUR REGULAR TRASH into the recycle bin. This ruins the whole batch.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet us not mangle the language - it is a Cult, not a Religion
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI teach at a two-year college. My students arrive fresh from high school knowing two things: smoking is evil and recycling is good. That's the sum of their knowledge.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseReligion isn't nearly that bad. But that's my American opinion. The Europeans who dominate this space on weekends seem to reflect that continent's backwardness on the subject. It's bullying. That's the line.
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