Packin'

Ready or not, it has begun. School. I was not ready! I'm not basking in the fact that now I have to have a schedule! Let alone keep people focused on their homework and deal with all the annoying paperwork that comes home the first week of school. Why can't they do it all online? Another thing that doesn't float my boat is packing the sack lunches.

I found these statistics interesting:

Close to 2.7 billion juice boxes end up in landfills every year. (Container Recycling Institute)

Each child who brings a brown-bag lunch to school every day will generate 67 pounds of waste by the end of the school year - that's 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for an average-sized school! (EPA)

According to the 2004 U.S. Census data, there are 36.4 million elementary school-age children and 16.8 million high school-age children. If every child adopted a waste-free lunch (including finishing all of their food), we could divert more than 3.5 billion pounds of trash from our landfills each year.

Each year the U.S. consumes over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps. (EPA)

Lunchtime trash is second only to office paper as the leading source of school waste. (Green Teacher Magazine, Fall 2004)

So you ask what is a green girl suppose to do? Here is a quick guide to packing a eco-friendly lunch.

1. Buy a reusable, washable, colorful, character laden (if you want) lunch bag or box. There are some way cute ones out there! They even carry some that are made from recycled material on this website. http://www.reusablebags.com/store/lunch-bags-more-c-4.html


2. I bought some of these re-usable wraps for sandwiches and snacks. They are fun and easy to use and clean. (You can wash them in the washer or just by hand) But what I really love is not throwing away the little plastic sack each day! Here are some links for cute ones.
http://www.snacktaxi.com/
http://www.reusablebags.com/store/lunch-bags-more-sandwich-snack-bags-c-4_13.html

3. Buy reusable bottles. Stop buying bottled water and juice boxes and pack your own. Your best bet for a reusable bottle is stainless steel. You can find these just about anywhere. Even Old Navy had some last time I was in there a few weeks ago.


The initial cost for your lunch supplies will be more up front but do not fear!! You will not only help the environment you will save money going green! And who doesn't want a little more money these days! If you are going to purchase online make sure that you do a search for a coupon code. I saved over $15.00 on my order by doing this.

A disposable lunch costs $4.02 per day, versus $2.65 for a waste-free lunch. That translates to a savings of about $246.60 per child per year. wastefreelunches.org

I better start planning how I want to spend my $739.80 that I'm going to save this year! Disneyland, Moab, Snowboarding passes.....hmmm the possibilities are endless!

Go green girl Go!