Packed lunch boxes stuffed full of cartons, wrappers and crisp bags should be a thing of the past according to a St Albans author.

Former Herts Ad columnist Becky Alexander is the brains behind The Green Lunch Box, which not only has ideas for veggie sandwich fillings, salads and soups, but also aims to encourage more sustainable thinking when it comes to packed lunches.

She recently visited Camp Primary School in St Albans help launch their campaign The Green Lunch Box Challenge - held as part of this year's Sustainable St Albans Festival - to give pupils, parents and teachers ideas on how to use less plastic and packaging in their lunches.

READ: Find out more about this year's Sustainable St Albans Festival

Becky said: “It was brilliant to hear the children’s own ideas of how they could make their packed lunches more eco. Reducing the amount of packaging was the big one – one idea was to get biscuits from a normal packet rather than mini packets – cutting the packaging to one piece of plastic rather than, say, seven!

"Lots of the kids had mini cartons of fruit juice with straws so I suggested refilling water bottles instead, maybe with squash. Both would be cheaper for families too. It might not seem like a big deal but we talked about if everyone in their school did that, along with all the kids in St Albans and England that would be massive! Well done to Camp School for doing their Lunch Box Challenge!”

Herts Advertiser: Lola's lunch box.Lola's lunch box. (Image: Becky Alexander)

The school's eco-committee lead Helen Giffen, added: "We're really passionate about sustainability at Camp School and have a very proactive eco-committee. We hope that our whole school community will get involved in our Green Lunch Box Challenge and we can all make small changes which will collectively have a big impact!"

The Green Lunch Box is published by Orion Books and available from Waterstones and Books on the Hill in St Albans.