Plastic pollution poses an increasing risk to biodiversity, and food-related plastic packaging represents a major contributor to single-use plastic waste. Despite this, single-use plastic food packaging waste generated from schools remains largely overlooked in current source-reduction and waste management strategies. Schools are uniquely positioned to model sustainable habits in youth, making them ideal environments for interventions focused on reducing single-use food packaging.
Studies have shown that up to half of school waste can come from plastic food packaging, and in Ontario, each elementary student creates nearly 14 pounds of waste per school year, with over a quarter coming from drinking materials alone (juice boxes, milk cartons, and cans). While efforts to reduce single-use plastic waste are gaining momentum in retail and restaurants, schools are often overlooked.
Project Overview
This project responds to this gap by engaging elementary school students from Toronto classrooms to participate in a School Waste Audit challenge. This challenge encourages students to track their own waste and apply interventions to reduce single-use plastic food packaging. The project empowers students to develop and pilot their own ideas for reducing waste while also gaining data collection and synthesis skills to track the success of their interventions.
By piloting actions that reduce single-use plastic food packaging in schools, this project tackles plastic pollution while empowering students to become leaders in sustainability.
This Project Aims to:
- Reduce single-use plastic food packaging waste in schools by 50% through student-driven initiatives.
- Empower youth to take an active role in addressing plastic pollution.
- Develop a scalable model that can be implemented in schools across Toronto and beyond to support Canada’s plastic pollution reduction targets.
This project is led by Nadine Consunji, a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, working towards an Honours BA in Environmental Studies, Human Geography and GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Before beginning this project, she was a research assistant with the Fighting Floatables program, aiming to decrease anthropogenic litter along Toronto’s Harbourfront.
For more information, please email Nadine Consunji or Hayley McIlwraith.
This project is supported by Community Matters Toronto.
