Bringing your lunch with you to work or school has the potential to greatly reduce the amount of trash you produce. At home you can buy in larger bulk and separate food into single-serving sized reusable containers.
Ben and I have made a few steps in the right direction so far as lunch is concerned. We use reusable lunch boxes instead of paper bags; we bring cloth napkins instead of paper ones; we use glass food containers to transport last night's leftovers; we tote real silverware to and from work; we wash and reuse our plastic baggies. Yet we know we still have a long way to go.
Want a little help getting started with making your lunch more sustainable? Check out "Kids Konserve." You can find cloth napkins, reusable lunch sacks, stainless steel drink bottles, single-serving sized non-plastic food containers, and even "food kozies," which the site describes as "reusable alternative to plastic baggies, plastic wrap and foil...recycled, FDA approved, non-toxic, non-leaching, recyclable PE plastic...does not contain Bisphenol-A (BPA)."
The site even has a waste-free lunch kit that includes everything you need to get started.
So when your box of Ziplocks is running low or your package of paper napkins is empty, move toward a more sustainable lunch routine. And I, for one, would love to get my hands on a couple of food kozies!
UPDATE: To-Go Ware also offers an exciting line of dishes and flatware for the road. Check out their beautiful array of bamboo forks, spoons, chop sticks, and knives in lovely recycled plastic wraps. They also have stainless steel containers with snug tops that are perfect to bring your lunch with you to work or for bringing home left-overs from a restaurant.
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2 comments:
If you're not ready to give up on plastic baggies yet, this is a fun fact: Harris Teeter (upscale grocery store; don't know if they have them by you) accepts all film plastic with its recycling - so not just the grocery bags you took the food home in, but any super lightweight plastics, like saran wrap, plastic baggies (cut the zipper off first or use the folding kind), newspaper bags, etc.
Jess,
Excellent point. All the grocery stores here collect any (clean) film plastics as well, which is certainly a step forward.
It's still much better to reduce your need for consumer products, esp. petroleum-based ones. Recycling takes energy, and transporting the materials leaves a carbon footprint, so recycling is far less effective than reducing or reusing. But, during the transition when we're still learning how to change our lifestyles, recycling is truly important.
Thank you for bringing up the excellent point!
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