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 ...
Obama needs a "Plastic Sandwich Bag" tsar. Hopefully this will be part of his next-great-jobs-speech.
so self esteem isn’t important when it comes to liberal causes
Yeah but the hot water soap and electric too clean that crap with, will quickly make those little bags look like they are free.
I pack the family sandwiches in sandwich bags and tupperware so they won’t get smushed.
How long till the mandate the same items?
I remember when schools were about learning.
About individual thought. Curiosity.
Not beating kids into mental submission, to vapid political indoctrination.
Every year when my friends are buying their school lists and clothes for the kids, I thank God I homeschool since I couldn’t afford to buy tissues and tupperware and Abercrombie to send them back to school.
I used to pack ‘em in C4, to keep people from smushing them...
;^)
and Aluminum can be a problem with juices once the anodizing is scratched.
lol!
What about sanitation? I don’t think that plastic always washes so clean — especially when it has had something spoil in it. I think this is a foolish rule. Probably the best thing would be for all the kids to be home-schooled and to eat in their own kitchens, on their own china, using their own silverware which gets washed and stored in their own cupboards.
“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.”
Nothing like adult liberals indoctrinating all the kids into neurotic little brain washed mental cases.
Sorry, kids. I’m out of tupperware.
Slip this PB&J in your shirt pocket and run along to school, now.
Just hand the kid a sandwich and have them tuck it under their arm pit or down their pants until lunch. ;-)
Still, Ms. Corbett said the environmental message had reached her. After she saw how much waste she could reduce by changing her lunch packaging routine, she started an eco-friendly packaging company, Ecologic. “It created this very big awareness in our family,” Ms. Corbett said.
Yes, just a concerned mother from Oakland who loves Gaia and stuff.
"Working mom Julie Corbett was shocked by the amount of plastic jugs and cartons her family produced on a regular basis, and decided to do something about it.
Inspired by the Canadian milk pouch - a clear lightweight pouch placed in a reusable carafe – Julie decided to create a bottle that used a lot less plastic to provide a lot more sustainability.
Her eureka moment came in 2007 when she opened the box for her new iphone, and it was nestled on a smooth, yet sturdy molded fiber tray. Having found her ideal material, Julie imagined a bottle her children would love to use and could easily hold and pour. She designed a bottle that combines a sturdy outer molded fiber shell made from cardboard boxes and old newspapers with a thin inner plastic pouch and re-sealable cap.
With a bottle prototype in-hand, she showed her children how to pop open the shell, pull out the pouch, and place the separate pieces into the recycling bin. She knew she was on to something when they immediately wanted to do it again! She patented her technology and in May 2008, Ecologic Brands was born.
Today, Julie and the Ecologic team are committed to giving consumers and brands better choices and replacing shelf after shelf of rigid plastic headed for landfill with a new kind of bottle that has better things to do.
I wonder why they think they can’t carry home a zip-lock bag?
Yes, the eco-nuts and government mandates and stuff had nothing to do with it, it was just the free market.
Maybe we can throw in some Soviet-style show trials, to give the kiddies practice confessing to Crimes Against the EcoState.
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