Who doesn't need a "Pat on the Back"?
Posted on 08/28/2011 5:27:23 PM PDT by mathprof
Many retailers and schools are advocating waste-free options for back-to-school shoppers this year, especially when it comes to lunch. School lists call for Tupperware instead of Ziplocs, neoprene lunch bags instead of brown paper ones, and aluminum water bottles, not the throwaway plastic versions.
Sales of environmentally friendly back-to-school products are up just about everywhere. At the Container Store, the increase is 30 percent over last year for some items, said Mona Williams, the company’s vice president of buying. “We have seen a huge resurgence,” she said.
The trend makes the schools happy (much less garbage). It makes the stores happy (higher back-to-school spending). It even makes the students happy (green feels good).
Who’s not happy? The parents (what to do when the Tupperware runs out?).
“Ziplocs are the biggest misstep,” said Julie Corbett, a mother in Oakland, Calif., whose two girls attend a school with an eco-friendly lunch policy. In school years past, she said, many a morning came unhinged when the girls were sent to school with disposable sandwich bags.
“That’s when the kids have meltdowns, because they don’t want to be shamed at school,” Ms. Corbett said. “It’s a big deal.”
Schools have been adopting environmentally friendly policies for ecological and budget reasons, and retailers have been rushing to fill the newfound demand with store-front promotions and aggressive marketing. Staples has rows of eco-friendly lunch containers, like an Extreme flap lunchbox case with a compartment for plastic food boxes, and a Yak Pak lunch tote that looks like a purse.
Many of the schools are pushing waste-free lunches, where everything must be either compostable or reusable, in an effort to reduce garbage and the cost of hauling it away.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
clearcarbon: “Disposable bags tend to be reliably clean
and sterile when used to package lunch.”
True, but stop trying to make sense. We’re trying to save the planet here! Ignore the extra energy and water used to clean reusables and the increased risk of bacterial contamination. This is about feelings, not results.
I agree. Your post came just after I realized the same thing :)
NYT giving free advertisement in disguise of an article.
A side note to the indoctrination issues. Has anyone noticed the World Wildlife Fund has shifted their TV commercials away from polar bears to tigers?
I use ziploc bags. I take a couple of diet Mt Dews in the plastic bottle. I pack it all in a plastic grocery bag.
What I take for lunch is much healthier (and immensely cheaper) than I can get at the company store, I can say.
Some colleagues are rabid recyclers, but I was born with a mean, fighting face, so they leave me alone.
They don’t want you sending your kid with lunch...it shames kids who’s parents can’t be bothered.
she sells baby bottles for older kids?
““That’s when the kids have meltdowns, because they don’t want to be shamed at school,” “
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Seems like a learning opportunity.
Parents can teach kids the term “eco-weenie”, the valuable skill of appearing to care while really believing the opposite (a skill they’ll sometimes need later in life, perhaps at work) and most valuable lesson of all - the importance of not caring what eco-weenies say or think.
That would be a very useful lesson. Actually.
No need to turn them into little revolutionaries - but one could begin to start them out with their own independent thought processes.
Haven't seen those commercials. Are the tigers now shown floating away on small pieces of ice?
I just weighed some of my sandwich bags, and an airtight plastic sandwich container. The container weighs as much as 60 disposable sandwich bags.
What are the odds that an elementary-school student will remember to bring a sandwich container back home, over 60 times?
The schools here charge 40 cents for lunch for most kids, discount lunch, they didn’t even make us fill out paperwork or anything this year. But somehow no fat free chocolate milk in elementary??
Insane.
I guess they finally figured out that tigers kill and eat more people than polar bears.
HA! No it’s the same sob story about them being killed off, only 3500 of them left world wide, give money to help, etc.
A side note to the indoctrination issues. Has anyone noticed the World Wildlife Fund has shifted their TV commercials away from polar bears to tigers?
I thought it was the endangered and rare Desrt Lions
Who doesn't need a "Pat on the Back"?
desrt = desert
Well, at least they can’t blame my generation for all this hub bub. My dad built an entire room onto our house just to store my mom’s Tupperware. Finally he banned her from going to Tupperware parties. Quite frankly, I was glad to see the invention of the ZIP lock bags. One less thing to fall out of the cupboard. Just in case they try to ban them I have at least a two years supply right next to my stash of lightbulbs!
But it takes heat AND pressure to detonate C4...
My kids have enough to worry about carrying with their loaded backpacks.
Brown bags and aluminum foil are great, recyclable, options. Hmmm...isn’t that what we used back in the bad old, unenlightened, days?
We had wax paper over our sandwiches in brown bags with what ever else would fit in there. There was NO Kenyan Turd back then screwing up the place.
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