22 December 2009

Eco-lunches for kids!


Instead of using disposable plastic ziploc bags that leach chemicals and last forever in the landfill, consider switching to an eco-lunch for yourself and your children! This is what an ecodeaf reader uses for herself and her family- Lunch bag made from recycled plastic bottles, aluminum boxes for meals such as pasta, etc. Aluminum bottle for water (avoid plastic containers or juice boxes!). Cloth napkins and cloth placemats, washable and use again, and again! Lunch skins for PBJs and carrots or grapes.

Why not juice boxes? Many of them, even organic ones, contain sugar which you or your children do not need. Water is the best! Let them eat whole fruits instead of juice.

11 comments:

  1. Lunch skins. What a great idea! A little pricey though, but not bad when you consider the cost of boxes and boxes of sandwich bags.

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  2. Aweeessoommmmeeeee!!! Will order these for 7 kids, ages ranging from infants to 8 years old, in my immediate family. Heck, I'll be a kid and get one for myself :)

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  3. cool post. can you adopt me? i'd love to be your kid :D

    btw, i have lunchskins and the sigg aluminum box. i love lunchskins and use them for everything! the sigg aluminum box is alright, the rubber molding fell off both boxes (i have a med and small size box), so now i have a hard time closing both boxes (which means i need to glue the molding back in). it's not liquid proof, so i need to keep it level or whatever's wet inside WILL seep out. i personally have other more airtight items i use. will take pictures and post on ecodeaf, hopefully soon!

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  4. Actually you could buy the napkins from the men's dept at department stores, and buy a bolt of cloth and cut out the placemats. SIGG bottles do have their issues, however I've found them to be the best among other choices for drinking ease. I'd love to learn more about containers other than the aluminum box shown here that can easily fit in a lunch bag and does not contain plastic.

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  5. Nice! Just beware of one thing...Aluminum...Stay away from that as it causes serious health problems down the road such as alzheimer's disease, etc. Consider switching to 100 percent stainless steel. The same goes for your baking wares.

    Bet your kids enjoy making great exposure to their peers at the school!

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  6. Great tip! What I do is save all of the bags from the store that we use to put vegetables fruit and bulk food in. As soon as we get home I empty them all out so that they stay dry and clean.

    So I use those for my kids lunch bags - recycle. Haven't bought ziploc bags in ages!

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  7. Great tips and lunch bags for kids.

    Since we have a refrigerator and kitchen skin in the office, my lunch bag for work is the Earth Balance container. I tend to throw my left over such as stir fry or soup in the container(s). I use wider recyclable containers for sandwiches. I reuse the containers several times before I recycle it. If I buy Earth Balance butter all the time, I don't need the lunch bag. If I am bringing more stuff than my hands could carry, I use the chic bag to carry the items with me.

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  8. Thanks Sarah for sharing the information about aluminum before I make any order! I initially thought aluminum isn't good when mixed with anything acid like soda and the likes. Guess not.

    I went and did some search and found this good link that also mentioned about Sigg:

    www.ehow.com/about_5300319_health-risks-aluminum-water-bottles.html

    For stainless steel lunch bag and here it is for those of you who want to get one!

    It is at www.guidetogreen.com and look for stainless steel or go directly to:

    www.yourguidetogreen.com/store/stainless-steel/stainless-steel-lunch-bundle/prod_1771.html

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  9. I keep the ziploc bags and reuse them until they fall apart which is not that often, then I drop them in my recycle bins at my home.

    I also have a recycled lunch bag bought from Whole Foods. I use that whenever I go to work or to class.

    And, yea, aluminum is bad for you.

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  10. oh, I forgot to add...before I reuse my ziploc bags, I wash them first, of course! :)

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  11. ziploc bags are recyclable?! i visited a recycling station and the tour guide said they don't recycle filmsy plastic (as in plastic bags, plastic wrapping like for toilet paper, plastic covering like shrink wrap, plastic ziploc baggies, plastic bread bags, etc.) because they are too light and often get trapped in the machinery that separates the recyclables into glass, alumninum, plastic and paper. i witnessed the people working and screening out these things on the chute and these kinds of plastic go straight to the landfill.

    plastic bags often have to be dropped off at grocery stores, not in recycling bins. of course city recycling centers vary in what they can recycle.... i know my city accepts plastic bags, but they all must be put in ONE bag, together. loose plastic bags get trapped in their machinery and they'll automatically discard them.

    recycling stations are very, very picky about recycling, because they sell them off - and buyers only want up to 5% contamination (for example, a ton of laundry plastic detergent bottles, with a few newspapers stuck accidently in this one ton square box. once there's more than 5% contamination, the entire ton is sent off to the landfill. time is money. if they see dirty, unrinsed glass/plastic/alumninum or wet/soiled paper, they throw them out to the landfill. they're not going to waste their time cleaning or sorting through the little stuff. time is money to them.

    that's why we have to be vigilant about following their recycling rules to the tenth.... anyway, i'm amazed ziplocs can be recycled in your district?!

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