Don't+Buy+a+Sandwich

Lauren Meyer

 Don't Buy A Sandwich

Let’s face it: Teenagers are lazy.

 So, when it comes to buying lunch in the cafeteria at Hopewell Valley Central High School, students have two options. Either to wait in line for three minutes for a pre-made sandwich or to wait in a 20 minute line for a custom made deli sandwich.  Along with hundreds of other students, I chose the express area. These lunches are stacked on top of each other in a refrigerated self, and students are able to grab the lunch of their choice and quickly purchase it.  These popular lunches are distributed in “disposable,” non-recyclable, plastic containers, ending up in the trash 30 minutes later.  Plastic is everlasting. It does not decompose, but lasts millions of years in the environment. Nearly every piece of plastic made, still exists. According to Greenfeet.net, “Americans generate 10.5 million tons of plastic waste a year but recycle only 1 or 2 % of it.” By using an innumerable amount of these plastic containers per year, the school is clogging up landfills and causing dangerous distress to our environment.  “An estimated 14 billion pounds of trash, much of it plastic is dumped in the world's oceans every year.” Plastic has become so prevalent in the ocean that it can be found inside fish and has become part of the composition of sand.  From lunch containers to plastic silverware (available to students), these products contain hundreds of untested chemicals that can spread to your bloodstream, rearrange your hormonal balance, can cause infertility, and cancer.  Landfills are filling up fast, garbage is being dumped in the ocean, oil is spilling onto the shores of America. We are single handedly destroying our country, so why not change our behavior?  Businesses and households are changing their consumption rates of plastic and garbage. For years now, companies, such as Bloomberg News, has stopped providing plastic water bottles for its employees and has made all of their containers and cups compostable. New recycling programs have started to appear. Collection sites have started to appear for number five plastic, a number not accepted in normal recycling bins. A company called Preserve converts the number fives into tooth brushes, plates, and other everyday items.

 To change the schools consumption rates of plastic containers, sandwiches could be wrapped in wax paper, and salads could be served in cardboard containers. It’s as simple as that. Kids should be encouraged to bring their own silverware from home, instead of using a plastic fork, soon, and knife every day. That's over 558 plastic utensils that end up in a landfill every year.  Hopewell prides itself on its efficient recycling program and composting clubs, but fails to recognize what is causing these clubs to exist, in the first place. By using these plastic containers during lunch, the school encourages students to live by a “throw away culture.” No wonder you can see plastic bottles in the garbage cans, not the recycling cans only four feet away from each other. This way of living teaches students to be wasteful and not environmentally conscious.