How to Pack a Litterless Lunch

If you bring an individual-sized yogurt cup to work five days a week, you're placing 20 plastic containers into the trash every month. Add a few napkins and a plastic spoon, and it becomes clear your environmental footprint gets deeper with every lunchtime snack. Thankfully, it takes only a few simple changes to convert to a litterless lunch. You'll be doing the Earth a favor and might even save yourself a few dollars you'd otherwise spend on disposable sandwich bags.

Things You'll Need

• Reusable plastic containers
• Reusable glass containers
• Aluminum bottles
• Metal cutlery
• Ceramic chopsticks
• Cloth lunch bags
• Reusable lunch boxes
• Bulk snack food
• Baby food jars
• Home-baked cookies
• Home-baked granola bars
• Cloth napkins

Show More

Instructions

• 1

  Pack your food in reusable containers. Place sandwiches, salads, cut fruit and vegetables in hard plastic containers with lids. Use an aluminum bottle for drinks and round plastic containers for soup or liquids. Make sure your containers have tight lids so they do not spill.

• 2

  Use metal cutlery instead of disposable knives and forks. Purchase cutlery at a thrift or discount store if you are concerned about losing good cutlery. If you pack noodles or sushi, use ceramic chopsticks which can be washed at home.

• 3

  Place your lunch in cloth lunch bags. Sew your own, or purchase reusable cloth lunch bags which come equipped with a spill-resistant lining. Purchase a specialty lunch box which comes equipped with compartments for each portion of your lunch. This option also eliminates the need for plastic containers for each food item.

• 4

  Buy food in bulk and apportion for lunches. Do not buy snack-size containers of any item as the packaging is designed to be disposable. Instead, place dinner leftovers, fruit and nuts, yogurt and cottage cheese in reusable containers. Be creative: if you have a baby in the house, re-use glass baby-food jars to pack daily servings of yogurt. To save time, you can prepare several individual-sized portions at the beginning of the week, ready to place into your daily lunches.

• 5

  Bake treats and snacks that you would normally purchase individually-wrapped. Make quick granola bars or cookies and cut into bars and squares. Place these in reusable containers and save the aluminum foil from going in the landfill.

• 6

  Use cloth napkins instead of paper. Have a week's worth of clean napkins available so you can place one in each lunch until laundry day. To encourage your child to bring his napkin home from school, have him pick his favorite color.