6-year-old punished for wrapping sandwich in plastic

A Quebec school district came under fire last week after a teacher punished a 6-year-old boy for bringing a sandwich to school wrapped in plastic. According to a report from the National Post, Marc-AndrÃ&Copy; Lanciault and Isabel ThÃ&Copy;orêt's son, FÃ&Copy;lix, was excluded from a drawing for a stuffed animal because his sandwich was wrapped in a Ziploc bag. "If we want to teach people about the environment, I can understand that," Marc-AndrÃ&Copy; Lanciault told the newspaper. "But surely there's a better way than to penalize kids. The goal wasn't achieved anyway. At the end of the day my son doesn't know why he shouldn't use a Ziploc bag. It's not only the bag, it's the whole idea that we're being brainwashed from everywhere. They told us Ziploc bags are bad, so we've stopped thinking about it and just started applying the rule." The case -- and the resulting publicity -- has sparked a debate about plastics, personal choice, environmental responsibility and greenwashing. Canadian radio commentator Charles Adler weighed in today with a column in the Toronto Sun, headlined: "Enough greenwashing, Plastic haters need to keep their smug little hands off our children." Adler didn't hold back. He wrote that the boy "is without a doubt being indoctrinated at the earliest possible age to hate all things that flow from the petrochemical industry. Could there be a more enlightened approach to rescuing the planet from Big Oil than to scare the living daylights out of the children? "Memo to environmental fundamentalists: Please keep your sticky fingers off our children. We want them to learn how to think for themselves. We don't want them to be indoctrinated with fear and loathing of whichever people or objects you wish to dismiss or denounce." Plastics proponents often say that educating young people is a key to the industry's future. But what message are children getting about plastics?