- He’s happy because he’s doing his part.
My eldest went from pre-school to a Catholic elementary school, where hot lunches weren’t served. He was so excited to have his own lunch box; when he was younger, they were painted with superheroes. Along came my middle child and he, too, loved having his own lunch box. My daughter felt the same way. Every year they picked another and once or twice, the lunch boxes went missing and someone got to pick a new one.
But around fifth grade, they no longer wanted the responsibility of remembering a lunch box–they wanted to get to recess fast, to toss and run, so to speak–and we switched to paper bags. Whether boxes or bags, if they needed a fork or spoon, plastic was sent to school with them. For years, I sent Gatorade drinks in plastic bottles. Later, they preferred water in a bottle. I can remember thinking, “Wow, this is convenient!”
It wasn’t until my eldest was in high school that I began to realize that plastic was not biodegradable, that it lasted forever in land fills. Still, it never crossed my mind that at some point, the garbage we’ve created could overtake the Earth. (Or, maybe we’ll be shaken off before then–who knows?)
So when I received this email from the awesome company, Reuseit.com, I thought I’d share these statistics and alternatives.
School-Lunch Disposable-Waste Facts:
According to the EPA, each child who brings a brown bag lunch to school every day generates 67 pounds of waste by the end of the school year.
Eliminating disposable packaging and single-serving items can save families $250 a year according to wastefreelunches.org.
Forty billion plastic utensils are used every year in just the United States. According to Worldcentric.org, the majority of these are thrown out after just one use.
Families spend $85 a year on disposable plastic baggies, according to the Sierra Club. To buy reusable, click Snack and sandwich bags .
Watch wastefree lunch tips (Video) from Reuseit.com.
Top 5 Steps to a Waste-Free Lunch Kit:
Stop throwing away your money – literally. Replace disposables with long-lasting, safe reusables, hand-selected by our team. These are the five things you’ll need to get started:
1) Replace the brown bag with something safe and sustainable. Reusable bags are better looking and better for the environment.
Cotton Lunch Bags
Hemp Lunch Bags
2) Eliminate Disposables Wastefreelunches.org estimates that eliminating disposable packaging and single-serving items can save families $250 a year. Buy in bulk and use reusable containers to portion out your lunch.
3) Utensils and More Napkins, utensils, even straws! Why throw it away when you can use it again and again?
4) Reusable Bottles Americans spend about $16 billion annually on bottled water, that’s 38 billion plastic bottles in our landfills. Break the wasteful cycle by bringing your own bottle.
5) Snack and Sandwich Bags We offer smart, sustainable alternatives to the millions of sandwich and snack baggies used every day.
Maybe you’ll do better than I did with teaching your children about the importance of taking care of the planet that sustains our lives. Putting a lunch box away after lunch may take an extra minute or two, but caring for our home makes the effort worthwhile.
