Pack a Waste-Free School Lunch
with
Danielle Lessovitz
Packing a healthy and delicious school lunch for your child is always a good idea, but not if the excessive packaging accumulates into a kid-sized heap of garbage. See how to pack a school lunch that leaves little to no trash behind.
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Transcript: Pack a Waste-Free School Lunch
Hello, I am Danielle Lessovitz for About.com here with another eco-friendly tip. They are colorful, convenient, and your kids love them. They are the juice boxes, pudding pops and handy-snacks of the world. But did you know that when put in your kids lunch, thrown out and added up they end up making over 65 pounds of trash per kid per school year. That is probably more than your kid weighs.Today I am going to show you how to pack a waste-free lunch that is simply, saves you money and prevents that child-sized ball of trash from coming back to haunt you and your loved ones.
A Standard School Lunch
But first, let's take a look at a standard packed lunch. Let's see, we have an apple, a juice box, a paper napkin, a granola bar (I'll save that for later), a hummus and cheese sandwich, carrot sticks, and yogurt and a plastic spoon.Avoid Extra Packaging
When packing a waste free lunch try to avoid things like plastic baggies, foil and individually wrapped items. Instead buy in bulk and take single servings and place them in reusable containers.Get a Sandwich Container
Let's start with the centerpiece to a standard lunchtime fare, the sandwich. Conventional bagging wisdom would suggest the plastic baggie or the fun but often less used foil. Let's try our reusable container. Put the lid on like that.Ditch Disposable Yogurt
Now for our yogurt. These individually wrapped guys are great but for our waste-free lunch we are going to buy a larger container and scoop a single serving into, you guessed it - a reusable container.Buy in Bulk
Now for that not so eco-friendly granola bar - again buy in bulk, and scoop into a reusable container.Utilize Container Space
Now for that apple, no the apple is fine. But the carrot sticks are not. I am going to take them out of the baggy and place them into the sandwich container where there should be more room.Bring a Thermos
Now the juice box. The greatest alternative to the greatest invention ever, the juice box, is our leak free thermos. Go ahead and pour water or juice into the thermos, make sure it is closed properly and we are on our way.Use Reusable Lunchboxes
Okay now let's place everything into our reusable lunch box: sandwich, thermos, yogurt, granola, apple no more plastic spoons, real silverware, and a cloth napkin and there you have it. Packing a waste free lunch helps to establish good eco-friendly habits in your children early on.Thank you for watching, to learn more, please visit us on the Web About.com.