Thank you Urban School Food Alliance districts,
New York City, Dallas, San Diego, Baltimore, Philadelphia,
DeKalb County GA, Portland OR, Chicago, Miami-Dade County
and schools across the US
for joining the 2022-23 school year
Plastic Free Lunch Day USA action!
Map of participants ->
Is your school/school district on board?
Get started with our free resources->
New York City, Dallas, San Diego, Baltimore, Philadelphia,
DeKalb County GA, Portland OR, Chicago, Miami-Dade County
and schools across the US
for joining the 2022-23 school year
Plastic Free Lunch Day USA action!
Map of participants ->
Is your school/school district on board?
Get started with our free resources->
Press Release
Plastic Free Lunch Day USA, April 19, 2023
Plastic Free Lunch Day on the menu for urban school districts across the nation
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For immediate release April 19, 2023 Contact:
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New York, NY, April 19, 2023 - In their continuing effort to free school cafeterias from single-use plastics, Cafeteria Culture, the force behind the award-winning 2019 movie Microplastic Madness, and the Urban School Food Alliance (USFA) host another Plastic Free Lunch Day (PFLD) USA, on April 19, 2023. Participating USFA member districts New York City, Dallas ISD, San Diego USD, Chicago (schools with Aramark service), Baltimore City, and Portland Oregon will be joined by large and small non-USFA schools and districts across the US. The first national PFLD, November 2, 2022, was a huge success and will be followed by many more, with the aim that every day be a Plastic Free Lunch day.
The Plastic Free Lunch concept was developed by Cafeteria Culture, an environmental education nonprofit, and a group of NYC fifth graders who, after studying plastic pollution for two years, discovered that their lunches contained a shocking amount of single-use plastic foodware and packaging. In response, the students designed and carried out the first plastic free lunch day that reduced total school lunch waste by 99% and eliminated 558 plastic waste items. School cafeterias, which serve 7.35 billion meals a year, generate billions of plastics, which endure for centuries. As the NYC fifth graders discovered, school and home lunches abound with unnecessary single-use plastics such as utensils, straws, plates and trays, pre-packaged food cups, juice pouches, chip bags, condiment packets and more! “We are thrilled to join the Urban School Food Alliance, Cafeteria Culture, and students at over 750 schools across the country in taking climate action to the cafeteria,” said Chris Tricarico, Senior Executive Director of NYC DOE’s Office of Food and Nutrition Services. “Students at P.S.15 Patrick F. Daly Magnet School for the Arts, right here in Brooklyn, started Plastic Free Lunch Day because they saw that plastics were harming our environment and that the cafeteria could be a catalyst for meaningful change. It brings us great pride and joy to see our students inspire a national movement to create a more sustainable future.” Plastic Free Lunch Day action now gains support from the Urban School Food Alliance, a national powerhouse that represents 18 of the largest school districts in the country. NYC, Dallas, San Diego, Baltimore, Chicago (Aramark cafeterias) and Portland Oregon are among the first districts to sign on to the April 2023 event. “The Urban School Food Alliance is excited to see the momentum behind PFLD and build on the success of last year’s launch,” said Dr. Katie Wilson, Executive Director of the Urban School Food Alliance. “Our members are committed to creating a healthier future for students and the environment. The ideas and partnerships that came out of the first PFLD event have continued to transform the way USFA districts think about the sustainability of their procurement practices, products, and operations. We look forward to seeing this initiative grow today and continuing to find new opportunities to reduce waste in schools every day.” PFLD is a student action response to the massive plastic chemical and global plastic pollution problems. The world produces over 400 million metric tons of plastic each year, most of which is throw-away single-use plastics that end up in incinerators, landfills or the environment. As described in Cafeteria Culture’s award-winning student-led movie, Microplastic Madness, plastics survive for generations and break into small pieces called microplastics and then into tiny pieces called nanoplastics. These long-lived tiny plastic pieces have become airborne and taken flight across the globe, resulting in a near-permanent contamination of our soil, air, water and bodies. “Plastic Free Lunch Day is a golden opportunity for New York City and large school systems across the nation to speed the reduction of climate-destroying single-use plastics from school food service,” said Eric Goldstein, NRDC Senior Attorney and Director, NYC Environment, People & Communities Program. “Cutting back on single-use plastics makes sense because it cuts waste disposal costs while reducing health and environmental threats from exposure to plastic’s toxic constituents. And there are no better emissaries than our young students to send the message to government decision-makers that the best time to implement more environmentally sensible policies in our schools is right now.” PFLD USA is also an urgently-needed student health intervention. Plastic foodware and packaging contains thousands of toxic chemicals such as PFAS that readily migrate from plastics into food and beverage. Most of these persistent lipophilic plastic chemicals wreak havoc with students’ developing neurologic, immune, reproductive, and endocrine (hormone) systems. And, as classified obesogens, they set the stage for childhood obesity. “Besides the known effects of plastics on our planet, children are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of chemicals used in plastic, particularly because of the crucial role of hormones in our bodies for so many biological functions. That’s why this Plastic Free Lunch Day is so important,” said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, the Jim G. Hendrick MD Professor, Director of the Division of Environmental Pediatrics and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Pediatrics at NYU School of Medicine. PFLD is an equity action. The exponential rise in single-use plastics disproportionately burdens urban areas, where non-biodegradable highly-flammable plastics pile up at waste transfer stations, landfills and recycling centers tasked with recycling the unrecyclable. And plastic-fueled incinerators that release airborne dioxins and other toxic plastics chemicals are almost always located in urban and rural low income communities and communities of color. When plastics overflow these communities, they are exported to countries of the Global South where they pile up, are openly burned, and dumped into waterways that enter the ocean. The upstream solution to this global problem is to turn off the tap–reduce plastic production–the message behind PFLD USA. PFLD is a climate action. Because plastics are made from fossil fuels, they lock in fossil fuel use and carbon emissions–the fossil fuel industry’s Plan B. At each stage of its long life, plastic emits CO2 and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Like industrial plastic waste facilities, the heavily-polluting plastic production facilities, which include fossil fuel extraction and refining, are disproportionately located in low income communities and communities of color. Yet, despite the many environmental and human health threats from plastic, the plastic industry has doubled production since 2000 and is on target to double again by 2040. PFLD USA provides an immediate, tangible and repeatable way for students to take climate and plastic action–a way for students to help turn off the tap. “As polluting plastics pile up across the world, they wreak havoc on our environment and health, while adding fuel to the Climate Emergency. Plastic Free Lunch Day provides an excellent opportunity for students to take action right in the school cafeteria,” said Debby Lee Cohen, Cafeteria Culture founder and Executive Director. “Students, the clients of school food, are taking real-life relevant action, resulting in game-changing institutional change that tackles the seemingly intractable issues of plastic waste and equity.” In October 2022, NYC public schools launched a monthly Plastic Free Lunch Day in all 750 elementary schools. And San Diego USD will launch a 3-day Plastic Free Lunch, April 19-21, 2023, showing us that one plastic free action leads to another! plasticfreelunch.org About Cafeteria Culture
Cafeteria Culture (CafCu, founded as Styrofoam Out of Schools) works with youth to creatively achieve zero-waste and climate-smart schools, communities, and a plastic-free biosphere. We teach innovative environmental education that fosters youth-led solutions by merging citizen science, civic action, video production, and the arts. Students in our programs, overwhelmingly from lower income communities of color and living in public housing, are providing an urgently needed voice to our City’s plastic free and climate movement. By partnering with school food directors and students, we catalyzed the elimination of Styrofoam trays from New York City schools. Learn more about Cafeteria Culture at www.cafeteriaculture.org. About the Urban School Food Alliance Founded in 2012, the Urban School Food Alliance consists of 18 of the nation's largest school districts. Together, its members represent approximately 4.2 million students and serve more than 715 million meals annually. The Alliance was created by school foodservice professionals to address the unique needs of the nation's largest school districts. As a nonprofit 501c3 group, the Alliance identifies and shares best practices, crafts standards and policies that elevate school meals, and advocates for the health and wellness of all students. Learn more about the Urban School Food Alliance at www.urbanschoolfoodalliance.org. |