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 ...
>>Sounds like the problem is Dad, not the box.....;^).....<<
Yeah, well, we love him no matter what. ;-)
Remember when you would drop your thermos and hear that sickening sound of breaking glass....knowing you were going to be in trouble when you got home?
(I had the same lunchbox).
I have elementary aged kids - they still go to school with a lunchbox and thermos (too cheap to buy milk at school).
LOL! Yes, although I never broke Barbie, I dropped many a thermos. I would carefully unscrew the cap thinking "well, maybe it didn't really break"..as if.
I used to take my lunch to work when I lived farther away. I’d usually take leftovers from supper the night before, and nuke it in the company breakroom microwave. One day, I had a boiled egg in the container along with the other stuff. It exploded and made a real mess all over the inside of the oven. Lesson learned.......
The rolled egg with spinach reminds me of a similar dish, with feta cheese, shaved almonds, sweet onion added.
they waste money and energy having all these foods brought in from Maine, or Japan, etc...
and they never ever would insist that little Johnny eat ALL his food....nope....wasting is a prime attribute of these enviromental wackos....
I thought it was bay leafs or bean with bacon....
LOL! I haven’t seen that one but “cara-ben” (Character bento) is a big thing among young moms and daughters.
I make my wife’s bento every morning (I work at home and she has to be at her desk at 0730) and while I sometimes stray into smiley faces on the rice, I don’t have the time or the patience to make the real cara-ben.
We don’t use the fancy bento box, though. I like the three compartment Zip-Loc plastic container. The big compartment is perfectly sized for rice, pasta or a sandwich, and the two smaller compartments are good for side dishes, even wet stuff like spinach.
Still, like I said, it’s an idea. So many cutsie bento boxes (some with uproariously funny broken English)... Might be a good E-bay thing.
That would be a "canteen". I'll bet people would stop carrying canteens if you started calling them that.
Hmmmm ..?? Neoprene .. isn’t that made from OIL ..??
Oh my .. we can’t be using anything made from those horrible oil people .. can we ..??
If you need a sarcasm tag .. you’re not on the right website!!!
Not me. We were too poor/cheap to buy multiple thermoses per year. So we used good old, insulating styrofoam cooled with ice ice made from good old Freon in the refrigerator (that saved lots of trees, as Freon is more efficient than the crud they use now).
School lunches are horrible nutrition wise. Not to mention, the kids don’t eat them. I believe that this article is for rich folk who send their kids to fancy schools and can afford the darn ecologia baby bottles.
WTF is this?!?
Schools mandating what parents must buy their children for lunch?
Does no one see this as wrong?
IMO? If the kids are ashamed of what I fix, then they can pack their own damn lunches in the morning. problem solved.
Pretty much looks it.
Self-esteem, don'tcha know.
Green Jobs!!!!
I’m not sure ANYONE has the patience for Cara-ben!
We saw one that was piggies doing the back stroke, made out of hard boiled eggs, cut ham slices for the appendages and nori for the eyes in a pool of rice. My younger one swears she is going to make it for my older piggie crazed daughter. So far, she hasn’t done it.
We have the nori punches for faces. That’s about as far as we are going!
I’ll have to look for the Ziplock containers. I wonder if they even have them in the states.
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