Carton packages are recyclable. But most importantly, they need to be disposed of the right way, even when consumers are on the go, or when kids are at school so they can stay away from landfills. That is why Tetra Pak Canada has teamed up with the Recycling Council of Ontario and Metro Ontario Inc on this year’s Waste-Free Lunch Challenge.

The goal of the elementary school program is to help schools decrease the amount of garbage they produce and to educate students, staff and parents about waste reduction. School lunches are a major source of waste in Ontario with the average student’s lunch generating a total of 30 kilograms of waste per school year, or an average of 8500 kilograms (18,700 lbs) of waste per school per year. 

There are two features of the program:

   1. The Challenge itself, where students commit to bringing a waste-free lunch every day during Waste Reduction Week (October 17-21), and

   2. A competition where classrooms/schools who register for the program, monitor the waste produced from their lunches on a normal day (prior to the Challenge) and then again each day during the week-long Waste-Free Lunch Challenge. To enter the competition, classrooms/schools are asked to submit an entry form with their results and a brief summary of their experience.

The Waste-Free Lunch Challenge runs from October 17^th to October 21^st 2011.  More information at http://wastefreelunch.com/