The sustainable lunch box?
Elizabeth Rogers, co-writer of The Green Book, The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet, One Simple Step at a Time
The other day I realized that my obsession with waste, plastic and getting to the end of the school year without buying anything new might have gotten the best of me.
My son came home from school with a broken lunch box. The zipper was shot. Two more weeks left. I had had high hopes that one lunchbox would have seen us to the end. I was not going to CVS to buy a plastic lunch box for the next day. I had to put a rubber band around it for him for the next day of school. Then I rushed online to ReusableBags.com and ordered him the lunch bag made from recycled plastic soda bottles (cool totes -- a large insulated lunch bag for $18.95). But I was so frenzied that it get here right away, I spent an extra $19.95 to ship it overnight. So now I'm spending more to ship it than the bloody blue-bag-with-green-frogs lunchtote actually cost!
My son comes home the next day, broken bag in hand, to check out his new recycled lunch tote.
"Mom," he says, completely mortified.
He tells me that he is not a baby, and he won't carry anything with green frogs any more. I had gotten so caught up in my "greenness" and the fact that it was the "right" lunch box for him that I forgot to see it for what it was, which was a lunch box for a three year old, not a seven year old. So now I'm out $38.90, we still have no lunch box, and I have to give the green frogs to the cleaning lady who by the way thinks I've gone mad...
O.K., Whole Foods must have something I can use right? Because I can't send him to school with a broken lunch box tied together with a rubber band again, or the teacher may think I've been drinking (which sounds pretty good right about now). We pull into our local Whole Foods; the answer will be in there. Right?
Wrong. It's the end of May. That's what I'm told. Who needs a lunch box at the end of May? How can this be happening to me? We go to three more Whole Foods, because we are now on a reusable lunch bag hunt, and one gal thinks she saw one left somewhere.
This is the point where I know I have become weird and obsessive and need to let this go. But I have a fact stuck in my brain: I know that one elementary school alone creates 18,760 pounds of lunch waste per year, and I cannot contribute to that by packing my son a paper sack lunch, even for a day or two.
This is ridiculous. I need to relax. Take a bath: if I plug the drain before I turn the water on I'll save about five gallons of water, that should help with that lunch waste…wine, I'll pour a BIG glass.
Clearly I've turned a corner: Somewhere in my quest to be the face of the new green woman, I've turned into the new green freak show.
I drive us home. We go online and order together for standard delivery a cool totes large insulated lunch bag in BLACK. And I pack him a lunch for the next few days in a left over shopping bag, and talk it over with some of my girlfriends. And a lovely bottle of pinot grigo, which I recycle, of course!
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growing up the three of us used the same lunch boxes for years. and, i now take my lunch to work in a reusable lunch bag. but i would never spend that ridiculous amount of money on a lunch box or spend copious amounts of gasoline driving from one whole foods to another in search of the perfect bag. how silly! it seems like you maye have missed the whole point... to have a smaller impact, period. not to show that your child has a specifically "cool" or "green" or "hip" lunch box. i believe that environmentalism is a shared passion of ours, but i think there needs to be a bigger push to make it afforadable and appealing to everyone. $18.95 lunch boxes are not going to get us there.
I am disapointed in this author, not only wasting money on a "green" lunch box, but having a cleaning lady. Does the cleaning lady use earth friendly products? This is a rediculous article.
I think y'all are being a little harsh. I've been in that position where I wanted to do what was good (and green) but got caught up in the everyday franticness of getting everything done as soon as humanly possible...without realizing I HAD the option to just slow down and, you know, stop freakin out or whatever...
Anyway, I thought this was funny. And true to what it's like sometimes, when your best efforts backfire.
Give me a break! I can't believe I was going to buy this book!
She is one of the people who is going to tell us how to be going green!! Frogs are Green!! Just where did she save anything? She not only drove around looking for a store and then did not find what she was looking for, spends all the money buying one on line and gives it away, then she does it again with her son, wow all the waste of green there. Tell me just what is wrong with paper bags for a few days?
They ARE recyblyable and he could of course, to save the HUGE amount of paper waste (wow) he could use the same one.
This is just an article to remind us what NOT to do to be eco-moms. It's a very good reminder. How about a trip to the Goodwill or St. Vinny's for an old school lunch pail? It should be the '4 R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, go Retro.
One thing I appreciate about this author is that she was trying to also find her son a lead free lunch box, just one more thing MOMS of today have to worry about. It's so hard to raise a child today with all the hysteria going on with chemicals...
This article helped me more than I can say, it was the road I am headed down- not because I am green- but freaked out about cancer. My kid will not have a lead lunch box, hes six and wanted a race car one. They dont make it. I thought the frogs were cute- this will save my kid hours of humilation. I will find a lead free lunch box, its good to know I'm not alone.
I think this was very funny! And I found it while looking for a lead free lunch box. Paper bags are required to be thrown away at school and are not recycled. Public schools do NOT recycle. And guess what? My old recycled house needs a cleaning lady because I have a damaged back-- YES, she uses green products. Of course! Vinegar and baking soda mostly. You all sound like a bunch of jealous nuts. Pull your head out of your butt. DO not use an old lunch box--most are lead contaminated. And most new ones, too. Look it up.