"Green" Lunches

As the NC tax-free weekend is upon of us, parents and their students will be snatching up school supplies and new clothes for the upcoming school year. Of course, an important part of going to school every day is lunch!

Garbage and waste is a major problem in school lunchrooms, eventually, ending up in the landfill where it will sit for your child's lifetime, or longer.

If you want to send your kid back to school this year a little greener, there are a few things you can do to avoid filling the dump and polluting the earth.

• Use Reusable Lunch Bags, Food Containers and Drink Bottles: Cloth lunch bags are easy to store in a backpack and can be thrown in with the laundry at the end of the week. Use plastic reusable food containers to hold snacks rather than buying plastic baggies that will be thrown away. Rather than sending your kid to school with a juice box or a soda can, buy a non-toxic, eco-friendly, reusable drink bottle.
  
  
• Buy the Family Size: Rather than creating waste each time your child eats some chips with individual sized bags, buy the big bag and give them a handful for lunch. This will save you money too.

• Buy Organic: Instead of feeding kids fruit flavored snacks, buy fresh, organic fruit instead. This will avoid consumption of pesticides or hormones.

Remember, these tips are good for you to practice at work too! So when you're shopping for all those school supplies, avoid the temptation to buy disposable and individually packaged items by giving your child a greener lunch. They’ll also learn how to protect the earth for generations to come.

*Photo from imorganic.com