We are an extractive society By Julie Peller, Ph.D.

Green Junction

While we say that we care about the future for our youth, there are signs that our actions do not align with our words. For example, we have not made bold changes and adequate sacrifices to address climate change. Another example is the reduced support in many places for public education, the basic foundation for education and growth for our youth. Tightened school budgets have resulted in outsourcing of food and nutrition services in our schools, and, in most cases, this has translated to poorer nutrition and excessive waste. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with a class of college students about the world’s plastic waste problem and I showed them pictures of school lunches – plastic-wrapped food served on disposable plastic trays. I asked them if the images were reflective of their school lunches when they were in K-12, and they all nodded. In most of our schools, children are no longer provided real cutlery, plates and cups. Most of the food is pre-packaged.  Data confirm that packaged foods are less healthy than freshly prepared foods. 

Every day, over 12.2 million pounds of plastic food packaging is thrown away in schools in the United States, according to a 2022 study on waste in schools. Over the course of a school year, one student who eats school lunch will generate 67 pounds of plastic waste. Another study from 2022 was titled “Children can’t advocate for themselves: American public schools have a massive plastic waste problem.” We now know that plastic packaging exposes our children to chemicals and microplastics. This school food system is not sustainable and teaches our children the wrong behaviors: use and throw away resources and create waste that pollutes the earth for a long time. 

We are an extractive society. We take the earth’s resources and create massive waste. Our schools are part of this unsustainable structure, setting wrong examples. The way forward will require investments in our youth, not for unnecessary disposable stuff, but for healthy systems, demonstrated by responsible actions. Pope Francis put it correctly almost a decade ago: “The Earth, our home, is beginning to look like an immense pile of filth.” Yet prayerfully he asks “Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.”

Julie Peller, Ph.D., is an environmental chemist (Professor of Chemistry at Valparaiso University). She has been writing a weekly column called The Green Junction for the past seven years and is helping to move the call of Laudato Si to action forward. Her Research Interests are advanced oxidation for aqueous solutions, water quality analyses, emerging contaminants, air quality analyses, Lake Michigan shoreline challenges (Cladophora, water, and sediment contaminants), and student and citizen participation in environmental work.