Green Your Routine Challange - Step 1: The Litterless Lunch

The first thing I thought about after I committed to taking the Green Your Routine Challenge {besides Seventh Generation products} was the way I pack my son's lunches.  I use way too many plastic bags for his daily sandwiches and casually use plastic wrap with some of his snacks, and I've been meaning to smarten up and use reusable options instead.

Did you know that the average Canadian child throws away 66 pounds of lunch packaging waste a year?  If you replace all of that disposable packaging with a reusable lunch carrier, you'd be saving an average of $250 a year.  Here's how:

1. Reusable lunch carrier:  The SnackTAXI is a great option in place of a plastic bag to store your lunches in.
2. Reusable containers:  Stainless steel, glass or an alternative wrap like the Wrap-N-Mat in place of plastic wrap or foil.
3. Stainless steel or glass drink bottle:  Stainless steel, glass or an alternative instead of single-use cans or juice boxes. 

Here is what we did to "green" Lil J's lunches:

1. Instead of using plastic bags for his sandwich we've been using plastic containers.  I would use glass containers but he is still a bit young.  I'm planning to buy reusable sandwich bags in the future to use in place of the plastic containers.
2. As always, we store his fruits and veggies in plastic containers.  I'm thinking that we should purchase a bento box in place of the plastic containers so that there will be more room for extra food if he needs it.
3. We've always used a Skip Hop Zoo Lunchie to store Lil J's lunches.  He's already on his second Lunchie and it definitely gets used to its full potential:

Lil J's healthy "litterless" lunch

How do you plan to "green" your kid{s} lunches this year?

Don't forget to enter our Seventh Generation giveaway for your chance to win a Starter Kit towards starting your own Green Your Routine Challenge!