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How to make a Zero Waste Lunch

As you may know, Max is in 5th grade. As part of his classwork, he was asked to create a blog, and he chose "Environmental Tips" as a subject. He was then asked to give a short "How to" speech to the class. So here he is on "How to make a Zero Waste Lunch"...



PS: Max recently went on his outdoor education trip. His wonderful teacher proudly announced that her grade received the record for the number of zero waste meals at the facility. During that trip, Max also joined the Hard Core club. Members of the club eat a whole apple (core, stem, seeds and all), and share a secret hand-shake. Love the concept. I joined the club too, but I have already forgotten the hand-shake ;)

Yahoo! video

This week, I give you more insight into our home with this Yahoo! video. Thank you Yahoo! for illustrating our efforts so beautifully.

Please refresh your browser if you get an error message (error messages are generated by connectivity issues) or visit http://vitality.yahoo.com/ for the video in larger format.

I welcome comments - but I also invite you to visit my blog archives and 'tips' page for more information on the steps we take to incorporate Zero Waste into our lives.

UPDATE: Thank you everyone for the wonderful comments and emails. As you can imagine, I have received an overwhelming amount of emails based this posting, so please do not be offended if I cannot personally answer each of them. That said, most of the questions have already been answered in the posts and tips sections. And - I plan on creating an FAQ document for those frequent questions that are...frequently asked. Thanks for all of your support!!!

Zero Waste Home essential: Motivation

One should be motivated to embrace the Zero Waste lifestyle simply out of goodness of heart. But our weak human nature is often tempted to put selfish needs ahead of conservation. Motivation is key to staying on track. My kids' future is what got me started, but it's too abstract to keep me motivated on a day to day basis. Visualization is what keeps me (I am a visual kinda gal) and the kids going. For example, when I am tempted to purchase plastic, I picture our oil reserves decreasing* and the guts of the birds below increasing...

(*According to Ed Humes, author of Garbology, "10 percent of the world oil supply is used to make and transport disposable plastics"!)

I thought I'd share with you two of the videos that impact my Zero Waste decision making:

On a serious note (thanks Cami for the link)

On a lighter note (yet so seriously true)

What images motivate you to stay on track?

In the News!

Long before welcoming Sunset into our home, Scott and I reflected on the effects of publicity. We weighed the pros (spreading the word of zero waste and hoping to inspire others) and the cons (exposing our family to criticism and knowing that many will judge us based on unanswered questions and assumptions). We felt that the pros outweigh the cons. Our whole family (not just myself as a blogger), is now exposed.

Here is what the local news had to stay about our lifestyle last night.