Did you know that school age children alone, contribute 1.2 billion pounds of lunch waste to the landfill annually? Most of this waste comes from single use packaging such as plastic baggies, wax paper, tin foil and pre-packaged items such as snacks. This problem could be easily solved if each child took their lunch to school.
My son has always taken his lunch to school. Unfortunately, his lunch box is huge. It has to be big enough to hold the several smaller reusable containers that I have to pack his lunch in. Most days parts of his lunch come home, untouched. I think this is because he grabs whatever is closest to him to eat. Another reason is he says, they don't have a lot of time to each lunch. That started me thinking that I needed to find a better lunch box solution for him.
I have recently seen these really great reusable Bento Boxes that I think would be perfect to send his lunch in. You can find Bento Boxes or Laptop Lunch Boxes in an array of shapes and colors. I like the Bento Boxes so much because once you pop open the lid, all of your lunch is there for you to enjoy. You don't have to open several smaller containers and arrange everything before you can start to eat. The best part, there is no packaging waste to throw away.
I will definitely be purchasing a Bento Box for my son for this coming school year and I have several friends that say they will be buying them too.
Would you consider a Bento Style Lunch Box?
Photo Courtesy of Laptop Lunches.
xo.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
What a great idea. My son and I had his lunch totally "green" by the end of the school year, but this is an even better way to do it. I'm going to go look for these right now. Thanks for the heads-up!
June 11th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Those are SOOO much fun! I will be book marking these for sure. It will be a quite a few years before my soon-to-be-baby (I'm a few months pregnant)goes to school, but it will be nice to have somewhere waiting for him or her!
Thank you for the post!
June 11th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Definitely a great idea and a good way to teach kids at a young age to cut back on wasting food. So many people in general waste so much food. We are lucky as a society to have so much food available that we can throw it out if we do not like it or are already full.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Jennie, if I'm not wrong, isn't the word, "Bento" derived from the Japanese, which is mean "a single-portion takeout lunch box"?
June 15th, 2009 at 7:29 am
Its true most of the time we waste the meals or food items not thinking much about it results.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Not only the box itself looks awesome, it gives the food itself some extra appeal as well! Great find.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:11 am
Great idea. I had never seen those reusable boxes for lunches before. That's a lot of waste from the little kiddies so it's a good idea. Organic rules!
July 10th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I think as we go through this social change we'll be able to slowly make an impact. The "in" thing is to take canvas bags to the grocery store-which is fantastic seeing it saves plastic bags.
Maybe if something this "revolutionary" catches on it'll be the in thing at schools too. I honestly believe part of the appeal of lunchables is not the food, it's the fitting in part.
Maybe all the kids can fit in with something like this?
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
This Laptop Lunches looks great. The children will love it, and the parents will buy one too for the work lunch.