The EPA has several worksheets about waste-free lunches. Did you know that every school lunch creates an average of 67 pounds of trash per school year? That means just one average-size middle school creates over 40,000 pounds of lunch waste a year! By reducing the number of items in your lunch that must be thrown out, or only using those that can be eaten, reused, recycled, or composted, you can prevent pollution, save energy, and conserve natural resources such as coal, oil, natural gas, and trees.