Avoid food waste

• 14% (weight) or 6% (volume) of school landfill bins consists of uneaten food. Keep South Australia Beautiful, Food Waste Lessons
• NSW school bin audits suggests that 25% of the food waste found in landfill bins is uneaten. Rumbalara EZEC
• In WA schools, 3kg of avoidable food waste is discarded per student per year, equating to 3 million whole fruit pieces, 1.3 million packaged food items and 3.5 million whole sandwiches discarded each year in schools across the state. Waste Authority WA.
• Australian students throw away ‘5 million uneaten sandwiches, 3 million pieces of whole fruit, 3 million items of packaged foods’ each year. OzHarvest.

• Take food waste home
• Play before eating
• Allow access to lunchboxes to return leftover food, eg class baskets or trolley
• Eating habits: eat together as a class, schedule longer eating times, supervised eating

Food Smart Schools  -  Food waste lesson plans and teaching resources  
Stages 1 – 3 | Love Food Hate Waste NSW EPA 

FEAST – Hands on activities and teaching resources exploring food waste 
Stages 1 – 3 | Information, activities | OzHarvest 

Make food waste history, lesson
Stages 1 – 3 | Information, activities | WA Waste Authority

Phenomenon: Digital toolkit food literacy, Hort Innovation

Be a Food Waste Warrior, lesson plans, Primary, WWF

Healthy Lunchbox Teacher Resources, Cancer Council 

• food waste related behaviours of their parents (interpersonal influences)
• the school environment (contextual influences),
• the individual knowledge and skills of students (intrapersonal influences).

Children’s food behaviours in school can be impacted on by the opportunity to select foods, the familiarity of food, the ease with which it can be eaten, the provision of prompts, reminders, incentives and fun, and the timing of eating and playing. Yenet al (2022) discuss the importance of valuing children’s agency, competence and awareness of sustainable consumption when discussing food waste issues at school. Children can be solution-providers and contribute to the development of food waste reduction intervention through guided creative problem-solving. Their small research project focusing on children’s voice indicated that children had a “competent understanding of the challenges of managing lunches in the school setting and reducing food waste. Their solutions to reduce food waste will require multiple stakeholder engagement, including self-regulation, peer-support, teacher supervision and family support”. Rather than relying on intervention schemes that require significant adult involvement, children placed a heavy emphasis on“self-regulation, playing an active role in addressing food waste in school.”

A focus on children’s agency is supported by other research, Kansal et al (2022) emphasise the importance of educating children about avoiding food waste by ‘involving them in meal decisions and choices’. Grant & Boulet (2020) report that schools trialing a strategy of ‘promoting student involvement in making food’ resulted in a reduction in school food waste.While extremely important, parental engagement with food waste avoidance, nutrition and food literacy program sat schools can be contentious. Boulet (2019) reported feedback from parents suggesting they felt ‘judged’ if they were not able to participate fully in the intervention and were worried that their children might be ashamed if they did not have homemade food in their lunchbox. This potential shame has also been noted for public health interventions that engage children in similar roles, with concerns that parents and children might feel pressure for not following suggested good food practices. The school lunchbox is more than a place to store food, it is a “container into which various aspects of the school and the home–the public and the private–maybe packed” (Metcalfe, 2008).

When considering increasing students ’knowledge and awareness of food waste avoidance, Shakeri (et al, 2021) suggest expanding the concept of food literacy to consider food numeracy, particularly for high school students learning. Food numeracy is the ability to use mathematical skills effectively to partake of daily requirements and be aware of the value of food ‘from farm to fork’, considering two key elements, food production and food consumption. 

It is worth considering that not all student populations will be experiencing over-consumption related food wastage, and there are socio-economic issues of food scarcity being experienced by some families. For example, the not-for-profit EatUp program provides free lunches to 184 NSW schools and 1000 NSW public schools are now involved in food provision for students through the FoodBank School Breakfast 4 Health program. In Tasmania, the School Food Matters program is addressing the issue of food security for students, expanding a program of ‘free hot lunches’ for students from 15-30 schools. 

Lalchandani (2023) summarises a range of food waste avoidance strategies for different members of school community:

• Schools can change food settings to be more conducive to children’s healthy and sustainable eating patterns
• Teachers can combine nutrition and sustainability into their curriculum.
• Children’s agency should be recognised and built up, “they have the power to request foods based on their preferences and often make choices before and after their lunchboxes are packed”.
• Parents can be supported by schools and policies to provide children with nutritious and environmentally friendly foods when packing lunchboxes. 

Boulet, Grant, Hoek & Raven (2022) “Influencing across multiple levels: The positive effect of aschool-based intervention on food waste”, Journal of Environmental Management, 308.

Boulet, Wright & Rickinson (2016) Tackling Avoidable Food Waste in Western Australian Schools, WAWaste Authority, accessed July 2023.

Grant, W. & Boulet, M (2020) Lunchbox Leftovers: Piloting an innovative project to reduce food waste in schools, MidWaste Regional Waste Group & Behaviour Works Australia, October 2020.

Kansal, Ananda, Mitsis, Karunasena & Pearson (2022), ‘Food waste in households: Children as quietpowerhouses’, Journal of Environmental Management, 308 (2022) 114681

Lalchandani, Poirier, Crabb, Miller & Hume (2023), ‘School lunchboxes as an opportunity for health and environmental considerations: a scoping review’, Health Promotion International, 38: pp1-13

Metcalfe, Owen, Shipton & Dyden (2008), ‘Inside and outside the school lunchbox: themes and reflections’, Children’s Geographies, 6, 403–412.

Shakeri, McDaid & Fethney (2021) Food Numeracy: Definition and Application across the Australian Secondary School Curriculum, Journal of Education and Training Studies, Vol 9:7

Wright, Williams & Rickinson (2019) Return to sender: a behavioural approach to reducingfood waste in schools, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management,