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Let me start off by saying that I care deeply about the environment and am working hard to instill a sense of pride in caring for the Earth in my kids. But I can also admit that I am far (oh, so far) from perfect. I cannot for the life of me figure out how people live without paper towels and I fell off the composting wagon when the stink was too much for my smell-sensitive pregnant nose to bear.
But, I do own (and usually remember to use) reusable straws, I am a stickler for recycling, and I have a small backyard garden. But when my oldest son began kindergarten last fall, the start of school brought with it new challenges in our attempts at being green(ish).
I knew I'd be packing his lunch each day. I also knew that would bring along with it a lot of plastic waste in the form of so many baggies. I decided to inch my shade of green a tad darker and cut sandwich bags entirely from his lunches. Instead, I invested in a few reusable lunch-packing items to tote food back and forth. The cost was definitely more than I would have spent on sandwich bags for the year, but these items are well-made — and they are all still in rotation for the coming school year. Keep reading to see what I found to be worth the investment.