Green Products

Send your kids back to school with eco-friendly, non-toxic lunch kits from Kids Konserve! Through September 30, 2009, Kids Konserve is offering Marin Mommies readers 15% off their orders using the coupon code marinmom.

Kids Konserve offers some great products to help make school lunches greener, cleaner, and waste-free:

While reusable bags are a great idea that cuts down on waste, not all of them are created equal. Local Marin company AAH HAA! Inc.'s line of Clean Conscience bags don't just take the place of disposable shopping and lunch bags, but are made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles, and are (amazingly, in this day and age) made in the USA! Also, unlike many eco-friendly bags out there, Clean Conscience bags are available in fun designs and colors, not just the plain-vanilla unbleached look.

AAH HAA! Inc. was founded by Corie Thornton, the company's "Clean and Green Designer." She's passionate about her mission to not only help clean up the environment, but to provide affordable, good looking, and functional American-made recycled products. “Trash is a terrible thing to waste,” says Thornton. “We’re un-wasting, recycling, and up-cycling plastic trash to convert them into beautiful and durable products that consumers can enjoy. Otherwise, all of the plastic we use in our products would end up in landfills, and plastic remains in landfills for hundreds of centuries before it even begins to decompose.”

It was when packing my son’s snacks for kindergarten that I became acutely aware of just how wasteful storing and transporting food can be. I’d find myself putting his snacks in different plastic sandwich bags, which of course all got thrown out either at school or at home (after we found the baggie containing 3-week-old rotten carrot sticks under the seat of the car).

Figuring that there had to be a better way, I started looking for a better way to pack snacks and sandwiches for school. Enter the reusable snack wrap. The concept is pretty simple in essence: a mat or pouch made of eco-friendly material like organic cotton or phthalate-free plastic that can be used to store food, then cleaned and used again and again, rather than thrown away. Here are some of my favorite reusable food bags:

It's the beginning of August, and at this point there's a good chance that either you think summer is ready to be over or that it's gone by way too fast. Either way, it's time to start thinking about the inevitable back-to-school topics that we all know and love.

One of the priorities of many parents is to reduce waste and promote environmental resposibility in their children. One way to help with this is to use a product like Fabkins, cool reusable cloth napkins for kids that are perfect for a child's lunchbox and at-home use, too. Fabkins were created and designed by Marin mompreneurs Joyce Raffo and Paige Rodgers. (We interviewed Joyce and Paige last year about their product and business; you can read that article here.)

Useful as both napkins and placemats, Fabkins encourage good table manners, and help reduce waste by eliminating the need to use paper napkins both with school lunches and meals at home. They're embroidered with fun designs in themes ranging from Prima Ballerina and African Safari to Xtreme Sports and Beach Bound. Fabkins retail for $19.95 for a set of four, and can be purchased at numerous retail locations throughout the Bay Area or online at www.fabkins.com. Marin Mommies readers can take 10% off their online Fabkins purchase by using the coupon code Marin10.

One thing that I'm trying to do to help the environment is to use fewer paper and plastic grocery bags when doing my shopping. I've managed to amass a sizable collection of Trader Joes reusable shopping bags (although I haven't yet won that $25 gift certificate), but the big problem with them is forgetting to bring them with me when I go shopping. I think I actually only have them with me maybe 30% of the time. Otherwise they're at home or in the other car.

That's why I was so excited to get a sample of Waste-Less shopping bags. Waste-Less bags are large, lightweight, reusable shopping bags that fold into a very small size—small enough that a set of three fits into a nifty little carrying case that you can put in a purse or jacket pocket. Keep a set on you and you'll never have to worry about forgetting your reusable bags again. The design is pretty stylish, too, and more designs are apparently on the way. Of course, you don't have to use them just for groceries; they make nifty tote bags for beach gear, books, and school stuff as well.