L is for LUNCH

Stomachs gurgle, eyes turn to look up at the clock...then the bell rings!  Yeah, time for lunch and RECESS!!!

Over 76.6 million children look forward to lunch and recess.  It's when they get to chat with friends, refuel with lunch, and get some fresh air and exercise.  These children consume homemade lunches and cafeteria food, and when they are done, they produce an astounding amount of lunch related trash.  On average, school-aged children eating disposable lunches generate about 67 pounds of waste per year.  For an average sized elemenatary school that translates to about 18,000 pounds or 9 tons of lunch waste that ends up in the landfill.

So what ends up in the 9 tons of trash at an average school?  Just think about what you send you children in their lunch, or what they eat in the school lunch they buy, and then consider what they don't eat and what goes in the trash...

Paperbags, plastic ziplocks, packaging from chip bags, cookies, cheese sticks, and yogurts, juice boxes, milk cartons, banana peels, apple cores, peach pits, and lots and lots of uneaten food is thrown out.  If you saw the amount of food that goes into the trash your stomach would turn.  I've seen the food wasted at snack time and at lunch time...and I can hear my parent's voices in my head, "that food could feed many starving people, don't waste food!"  I'm also saddened by the amount of trash that could be recycled but is not.

It's estimated that 380 billion plastic bags (about 1,200 plastic bags per person/per year), and about 2.7 billion juice boxes are thrown away each year. (Earthworks Group, 2009)  When I read the statistics about plastic bags I quickly calculated that my family would use on average 7,200 plastic bags made from non-renewable petroleum products per year.  YIKES!  So over the course of the last year, I've switched the family over to using reusable sandwich and snack bags.  Via a school fundraiser, I bought wrap-n-mat www.wrap-n-mat.com which I like because it provides a clean surface for the sandwiches to set on instead of the germy lunchtable.  Then I discovered snacktaxi.com http://www.snacktaxi.com/, and resnackit.com http://resnackit.com/.   I bought a few of each brand and was hooked on them!  They are easy to clean, and can be reused over and over, and are made of food-safe materials.  We also use small glad plastic containers instead of plastic bags for muffins, and other things that stand up better in a rigid container (and to appease the pickiest of all..the teenagers in the family who are not easily swayed by my eco-conscious reasoning...they just find it hard to be "cool" using my awesome eco-snack and sandwich bags).  I must comment that the kids, hubby, and I have had many positive comments about our fun, colorful reusable bags, and we are often asked for info about the bags, which we readily share.  Recently my sister sent us some new bags called Lunchskins 3greenmoms.com  and those have been a nice addition to our collection as well.

To transport our lunches, we've never used paper lunch bags (except on field trips when we can't stow the reusable items).  Instead we have a variety of lunch "boxes".  We have pretty, stylish Vera Bradley lunchbags  for my fashionistas http://www.verabradley.com/product/Lets-Do-Lunch/154875/defaultColor/Blue%20Rhapsody/p/154875.uts, LLBean lunch boxes http://www.llbean.com/llb/search?storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&init=1&freeText=lunch&Go=, and Built BYO lunch bags available at Target, Kohls, etc. 


So it really couldn't be easier to bring a waste-free lunch...with sturdy lunch bags from LL Bean, or pretty choices from Vera Bradley, taking your lunch can even be a fashion statement!  There are many waste-free, accessories such as reusable stainless steel or aluminum water bottles that can be used to keep hydrated throughout the day http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/08/k-is-for-kleankanteen-or-similar.html, reusable, non-plastic snack and sandwich bags, and cloth napkins.  Instead of plastic utensils, encourage your family to take regular silverware and return it.  With all the various reusable items, there are so many options for decreasing our waste, and the costs associated with it.

As for food waste, much of it could be composted, and recycled into "brown gold" by the humblest of decomposers, the Earth worm.  Greening of school lunches could easily be integrated into the school curriculum.  Setting goals to reduce waste, bring waste-free lunches, sorting out recyclables, composting, graphing waste reduction and disposal savings could all be integrated into science, math, and even writing curriculum.  I wholeheartedly believe that providing children with opportunities to learn about positive environmental habits will lead to lifelong attitudes about sustainability and environmental stewardship. 



sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/education/toolkit.htm
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/education/pdfs/toolkit/tools-m.pdf
http://www.wastefreelunches.org/
http://www.snacktaxi.com/ 
http://www.wrap-n-mat.com/Overview-of-Linings-i-16.html
The new 50 Simple Things Kids Can do to save the Earth, Earthworks Group, Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, Kansas City, 2009

Back to School Supplies

Wow, back-to-school prep and activities have been keeping us pretty busy!  We are finally settling into the schedules for 4 different schools, homework, sports, and other activities...as soon as September comes, it's like the pulse of the family starts to race!

The back-to-school supply lists that come home are usually pretty classic, including scissors, pens, pencils, notebooks, crayons and markers.  Even before my family had school supply lists, in fact as soon as each child was old enough to hold a pencil, they've been scribbling, doodling, and creating with Crayola products.  I guess you could say, they've always been a family favorite.  This year when it was time to sift through the supply lists for my kids, it brought a smile to my face and warmed my heart when I learned about Crayola's new "Eco-Evolution" and the greening of their products by using renewable energy, protecting the rainforests, and by reducing waste.  http://www.crayola.com/green/

Sweet Pea was the first to notice the new initiatives by Crayola.  She brought me her crayon box and showed me that they now are using solar power to make 1/3 of their crayons, which is equal to about a billion crayons each year made with solar power.  To accomplish this, they built a 15-acre solar farm with 26,000 panels.  Pretty impressive!  Wonder if they'll name a crayon, "solar panel blue"?

To "green" their colored pencils, they produced them with reforested wood which is wood taken from special tree farms grown specifically for harvesting, and not from tropical rain forest.  Crayola plants new trees for every one tree used to make the pencils.  Maybe they should name one of the green pencils "sustainable harvest green"  :)

And black is now in vogue at crayola...you may have noticed that Crayola colored markers have black barrels instead of white. Crayola is now using recycled plastic bottle caps to make the marker barrels.  In addition, plastic scraps from making marker casings are crushed into tiny pellets and put back into the system. The black color of the barrels allows more recycled plastic to be used, in turn keeping 1 million pounds of plastic bottle caps and scrap plastic out of  landfills.


During my back-to-school supply shopping, I found a "green" highlighter by Pentel.  It is part of the new Recycology™ the Science of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle program, which Pentel developed "to enhance its mission of helping the environment by creating less waste and increasing recycling activity" through innovative product design and manufacturing.  With this line of products, Pentel's goal is to "protect natural resources and the environmental at all stages of the manufacturing process" and it is accomplished by using a minimum of 50% recycled content (excluding consumable content and refills).   


The Handy-lineS, ultraslim highlighters I found are made from 54% post consumer recycled plastic.  I also like that they are retractable and refillable, creating less waste.  Even the packaging is made from cardstock that is 100% recycled, and the plastic blister front piece is a minimum of 25% recycled material!

There are many outstanding products in this line, including the popular mechanical pencil leads which come in 100% recycled plastic case, many pens, white board marker, and permanent markers made with 50-80% recycled plastic www.pentel.com .  I like that Pentel is recycling products that would otherwise end up in the landfill. 


Paper Mate also has green products that are impressive.  Their line of biodegradable pens and pencils, have barrels that unscrew and are made from corn-based material.  After removing the interior plastic/ink piece that is not biodegradable, the barrel decomposes in the compost or landfill in about a year.  They also have products made from recycled materials such as their correction film (67% recycled material), ball point pens made with 70-80% recycled materials.  I found the Earth Write pencils and added that to our back-to-school supply pile.  These pencils are made from 100% recycled cedar.  They also participate with Terracycle one of my favorite eco-entrepreneurial companies that up-cycling materials using innovative designs http://papermate.com/Pages/terracycle.aspx.   

So while there may have been a tad bit of back to school blues that banished quickly as our daily pace quickened ...we also found some back-to-school green to start the year off write ;)  I'm sure you found many green school supplies in your travels too.  Leave a comment to let me know what you've found! 


Sources:
http://www.crayola.com/canwehelp/contact/faq_view.cfm?id=100
http://www.crayola.com/green/products.cfm
http://www.crayola.com/green/presskit.cfm
http://www.pentel.com/recycology/index.html
http://www.pentel.com/recycology/press.html 
http://papermate.com/Pages/biodegradeable.aspx

Ohh Brother!

After replacing my P-touch label cartridge, I looked at the old cartridge which is made of plastic and wondered if it could be recycled like printer cartridges.  So I wrote Brother an email to ask.  They got back to me right away to let me know that they do have a program to recycle consumables. http://www.brother-usa.com/environment/TonerInkDisposal.aspx

They subscribe to the 5R Concept:

Refuse:  Avoid purchase of environmentally burdensome materials whenever possible
Reduce:  Reduce waste material
Reuse:  Reuse waste material without processing
Reform:  Reuse materials in a different form
Recycle:  Reuse materials as resources

Their program to dispose of toner, ink, and used consumables is very easy.  You print out a free prepaid shipping label, and ship back the toner, ink, or P-touch cartridge.  According to their site, some of the components are remanufactured, some are reused, and unusable items are processed through WTE (waste to energy).

 

As I like to say, it never hurts to ask :)

K is for KleanKanteen (or similar reusable water bottle)

Americans buy more than half a BILLION bottles of water every week! Enough to circle the globe more than five times!   And the funny things is, 1/3 of bottled water is actually filtered tap water, such as Dasani and Aquafina.  Other bottled water, that comes from freshwater springs, rain forests, and groundwater undergoes less testing than your tap water. Yup, that's right, Federal and state regulations require that municipal water sources, ie your tap water, be tested for bacteria hundreds of times per month, yet bottled water plants have to test their water once a week!

So for the convenience of drinking water that is not tested as frequently, we actually pay about $1-2 from vending machines, concerts, airports, etc.  That's about 2000 times more than the water from our own tap.   WHAT!?!  If that sounds crazy, it is!  Would you pay 2000x more for an apple, a banana, or a pizza?

And please don't  forget the plastic bottle that contains the convenient water...Americans throw out 38 billion empty water bottles a year, more than $1 billion worth of plastic. The oil used to make the plastic water bottles is equivalent to the amount of oil and energy to fuel 1 million cars.  And additional energy and fuel is required to ship these bottles around the Earth, and keep the bottled "gold" cold.  Then after all this water is consumed, there is the plastic bottle disposal issue.  80% of the bottles are disposed of in landfills or incinerated (resulting in toxins being released into the air), and it is estimated that it takes thousands of years to break down plastic.  

And if the plastic water bottles are made of oil, what about the chemicals that may be leaching out of plastic water bottles, and ingested?  There has been much press about this issue, and the single use bottles made from #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) are often reused when they shouldn't be.  When reused, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a possible human carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disruptor. So unknowingly, by trying to reuse the bottle which you can't clean well enough, you are risking drinking harmful bacteria and chemicals with each sip.

So, bringing your own water on the go is sounding better and better, right?  Much less costly, much less impact on the environment, and healthier....

When choosing a reusable water bottle be aware that many are made of polycarbonate plastic, which may contain bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical linked to reproductive problems and heart disease. Look for bottles advertised as "BPA-free" products, and if you aren't sure, recycle that old plastic water bottle.

While there are many brands of reusable water bottles, I'm particularly impressed with KleanKanteen.com. Their stainless steel water bottles do not have a lining to scratch off, they are free of BPA, phthalates, lead and other harmful substances, dishwasher safe, and I like that the company takes sustainability seriously, and is a member with of 1% For The Planet. In addition, all of their packaging, from the hang tags on the bottles to the boxes and other materials to ship their products, is recycled from post-consumer waste or made from materials certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).  And finally, they've adopted a green shipping program to offset the carbon footprint from all orders placed through their online retail store.

So carrying your own clean "canteen" or reusable water bottle is totally hip and worth it :)  Do your research, pick a good stylish, healthy reusable water bottle, and say yes to your own tap water.  You'll stay hydrated, be saving money, and the planet in the process. 

sources:
http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/

http://environment.about.com/od/healthenvironment/a/plastic_bottles.htm
www.thegreenguide.com/'
http://www.nrdc.org/  (Natural Resources Defense Council)

www.kleankanteen.com

J is for JUNK

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have JUNK.  And according to Marla Cilley, or  FlyLady as she is affectionately called, (www.flylady.net), you can't organize clutter, aka junk. As an on again, off again member of the Flylady website,  I've definitely learned some wonderful tidbits, you may want to check it out too!

But back to JUNK...we've all heard the saying, "One woman/man's junk is another woman/man's treasure"...so in order to keep "junk" out of the landfills, there are several options which basically feed into the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle message. 

1.  If we REDUCE what we consume, or rethink what we think we need, we'd all have less junk in our homes and lives to begin with!  Of course this is very difficult for those of us that enjoy "retail therapy", but I'm trying to retrain my brain to think...."do I need it, or want it", and if I do want it, how badly do I want it...badly enough to get rid of something else to free up space?  I'm trying to ingrain the thought, "Simplify" into my brain..."Simplify to Create Serenity" (ie. less junk!).  If I do make new purchases, I want to donate something else to free up space....which leads to number 2...

2.  Commit to finding re-uses for things.  Most of us already "reuse" clothes by handing them down to friends or family, and some people have yard sales, which helps keep many things out of the landfill (to me, yard sales are too much time and energy for me to bother with for the minimal yield.)  My preferred mode of re-using things is to donate them, or as Flylady says, "blessing others".  We donate books, clothes, tools, household items, furniture, etc via www. freecycle.org, local charities, and through our church.  I have to admit, that I'm often astounded at the items that people toss out to the curb when there are others who need and could use them.  I'm not sure if it comes down to disposal laziness, or not knowing where, or how to donate items, but it really couldn't be easier!  There are donation bins in tons of locations, and organizations such as Big Brother Big Sister that pick-up from your house, and when you Freecycling items, people pick up items from your doorstep.  There are many options to keep massive amounts of things out of landfills, and it feels great to help out others :)   http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/04/recycle-reuse-reshare-with-big-bro-big.html   http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/03/spring-cleaning-day-23-24.html
http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/06/d-is-for-donate.html
http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/05/closet-philanthropist.html


There are also young entrepreneurs, like those at TerraCycle who are thinking outside the box to reuse juice box pouches, corks, chip bags, cookie packaging, candy wrappers and much, much more.  I'm surprised that more companies have not followed in the green footsteps of TerraCycle to use waste to create products.  It's ingenious really, keeping waste out of the landfills; the waste becomes the raw material, and in the end, a product is made and sold.   TerraCycle also believes in number 3...

3.  Recycling - Hopefully by now everyone knows they should recycle their paper, glass, plastics, aluminum, etc.  And then there are those "15 Totally Recyclable Materials That Most of Us Keep Forgetting About"?
http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/05/15-totally-recyclable-materials-that.html  
http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/05/so-i-got-to-thinking.html 

But what peaks my interest is learning about companies that have come up with creative ways to recycle materials, and there are examples near and far.  On a recent vacation to St. John, we learned about The Art  Center (of Recycling) at Maho Bay Camps.  What a treat! Check out the beautiful, creative ways they recycle glass into beautiful, useful objects at http://www.maho.org/.  They also recycle old bed sheets by batiking them, and making them into table cloths, coasters, bags, table runners, etc.  But to date, one of the most interesting innovative eco-entrepreneurial companies that has captured my attention is Terracycle, based out of NJ because they keep multiple waste streams out of the landfills, work cooperatively with schools, and design great products http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/08/terracycle-on-tv.html .


Junk aka clutter can either weigh us down, or we can set it free by reducing, reusing, or recycling.  I'm working on simplifying.....and looking forward to serenity and at the same time watching for creative companies that keep junk out of the landfills and instead up-cycle it to the next level via innovation.   

Garbage Moguls

While flipping through the channels tonight, we found a show on National Geographic (NatGeo) Channel called Garbage Moguls featuring Terracycle, a company I previously highlighted in the blog. http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/04/time-has-come.html The show takes you behind the scenes to show how they take garbage and make it into products...and that is the key, being able to recycle things into products that are affordable, and a worthwhile product that someone would want to buy.  On the show I watched, Pedigree Dog Food contacted them and challenged them to use their dog food bags, and dog food pouches (trash that would otherwise end up in the garbage) to design usable pet products.  They have designed and sold many other products made from chip bags, cookie wrappers, Capri Sun bags, and much more.  Check out their cool lunch box made from Capri Sun bags. 


If you get a chance to check it out, I think you'll be as impressed as I am.  http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/garbage-moguls-4314/Overview

Dual-flusher wins approval

Well, the HydroRight Dual-flush wins approval, even from the kids! I can't believe they actually like one of the home improvement changes we've made ;)   http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/08/h-is-for-home-improvements.html


Now that Home Depot is carrying them, we were able to find a 3rd flusher at our local Home Depot and it was $7 less, at $17.98! So now, all 3 toilets will be saving us water, and money when they are used. 


So we'll chalk this home improvement up to a Dual-Flush-Dual-Win; parents are happy about conserving water, and the reduced water bill, and the kids are happy with the neat two button flush!   Who would've guessed?