Blog by ECOlunchbox

Giving a little love at Valentine’s Day is easy when it comes to the people in your life – and the planet!

As musician Ziggy Marley says in his inspiring song “Give a Little Love,” We got to give a little love, have a little hope. Make this world a little better. Try a little more, harder than before. Let’s do what we can do together!”

As another Valentine’s Day approaches, thoughts are turning to roses, chocolates and other gifts to “give a little love” to your special someone. Have you considered going green for Valentine’s Day by choosing eco-gifts that will please both your sweetheart and Mother Earth?

“Green may not be the typical color for Valentine’s Day, but people are tired of expensive and wasteful gifts,” said Sandra Ann Harris whose company ECOlunchbox specializes in eco-friendly lunchware.

“When it comes to eco-friendly Valentine’s Day gifts,” explains Harris, an eco-mom entrepreneur, “there’s nothing greener than a gift that results in less trash, less toxics, less carbon footprint, less expense and overall less impact on the Planet!”

Don’t fret, aspiring green cupids, we’re here to help inspire you with a few tips and tricks! It just takes a little creativity and the willingness to open your heart rather than depend on the greeting card aisle and disposable trinkets at your nearest drug store.

Green Valentine’s Day Tips and Tricks

• Do It Yourself Greeting Cards: Sixty five percent of all gifts will take the form of a greeting card. This year don’t be 1 of the 180 million Valentine’s Day cards exchanged — and quickly thrown in the trash! Instead make your own using photos from an old magazine to create a unique and lovingly made greeting card.

• Reusable Gifts: Pick gifts that are reusable and can be a token of your love for years to come. For example, reusable stainless steel bentos and other lunch accessories can be enjoyed daily and help a person save money and alleviate trash, according to a plastic-free lunch study by ECOlunchbox.

• Potted Flowers: Instead of cut flowers, choose a potted plant or flowers like tulips or a hydrangea that can be planted outside when spring finally arrives. Another green Valentine idea is to planting a tree symbolic of your relationship – and watch it grow together over the years!

• Homemade Goodies: Eight billion Sweethearts candy hearts are manufactured each year by the New England Confectionery Company. Get original for your one-of-a-kind Valentine. Ditch the pre-packaged treats and make your own.

Excerpt from Little Island Studios

The ECOlunchbox is so well-made with no plastic parts! Love! It all fits inside each other with plenty of room for the yummies. The fabric is absolutely gorgeous!

It is well made as well, two-sided and colors are gorgeous and rich. (I feel I need a skirt in this fabric The wrap is a great size for a little picnic! Love that there is no waste from ECOlunchbox! It’s incredible how much traditional lunch packing wastes.

Plastic-free, BPA-free and waste-free, our furoshiki wraps are yummy and yuck-free for people of all ages plus our planet. … <read more>

Excerpt from Discovering the Silver Lining

Before Zen started kindy last year, I knew lunches would be tricky.

I am pretty picky about what goes into his precious body and so I wanted really healthy lunches I could make easily for him. I started googling and was shocked at how much “healthy” food was wrapped in copious amounts of plastic – it worried me from an environmental perspective and an exposure to plastic toxins one.

So I started looking for litterless lunch ideas. And began to feel a bit funny about all of the lovely, healthy lunches packed into plastic lunchboxes. I then started googling eco lunchboxes (manic right?) and found some great ones. I really wanted a bento-type lunchbox with a few different compartments for different things and found the perfect one…<read more>

Excerpt from Gave That

Most who have visited this blog more than once probably knows just how much the Japanese art of wrapping, known as Furoshiki, is treasured around here.

Which is why this next gift find brings a great deal of happiness today… EcoLunchBoxes Furoshiki wraps and tote bags! The twist on these is that the prints on these bags are actually created by Batik and block printing fair trade artists in India. Running your fingers over the fabric you can feel the history and work put into these pieces. …<read more>

Excerpt from The Nurse Mommy

The ECOlunchette may look small, but there is nothing small about how much it holds. I nurse my daughter, so I need to pump at home. My pump didn’t come with a bag so I thought I would see if all my supplies fit into the ECOlunchette.

I was happily surprised when it did… I love it, as I don’t have to worry about chemicals or anything. I have used it for my lunch as well and it’s great, and is really cute too. … <read more>

Excerpt from ECOlunchbox Blog Post

When it comes celebrating the holidays sustainably this season, the old adage “waste not, want not” offers great guidance.

“There are lots of great ways to go green for the holidays,” says ECOlunchbox Founder Sandra Ann Harris, whose company specializes inno-waste lunchware. “With some eco-friendly thinking, it’s easy to come up with ways to avoid wasting money and resources around the holidays.”

A few sobering statistics about holiday waste are helpful when it comes to getting motivated to go green for the holidays. More than 30 million living Fir trees are cut in U.S. for Christmas each year. There’s no eco relief, however, in choosing a fake trees instead, because these plastic trees often contain non-biodegradable PVC and possible metal toxins, such as lead.

When it comes to paper waste over the holidays, keep in mind that a whopping half of the paper consumed in the U.S. annually is used to wrap and decorate consumer products. Adding to the paper waste, enough Christmas cards are sold each year (about 2.65 billion) in the United States to fill a football field 10 stories high. … <read more>

Excerpt from Coping With Frugality

Say goodbye to plastic and paper plates! The ECOlunchtray is plastic-free, lead-free, BPA-free, phthalate-free and waste-free. It is perfect for any meal or snack and also great for camping and picnics. The tray holds one main and two side dishes.

Another great quality about this tray is that it will not retain stains, odors or residues. It is non leaching, unbreakable, and dishwasher safe. and made from 100% high-quality, food-safe stainless steel (and independently tested lead free). …<read more>

Excerpt from Raising Green Kids

Back to school is here and what better way to start of the school year than with a Furoshiki ECOlunchwrap from EcoLunchboxes. The Furoshiki Ecolunchwrap is a great way to help to environment and safe money. You don’t need to purchase wasteful bags. I also like that they are machine washable.

Chic and versatile, furoshiki is the original eco lunchbag from Japan. If you can tie two knots, you can transform our Furoshiki ECOlunchwrap into a stylish lunchbag! …<read more>

Excerpt from San Jose Mercury News

At its most basic, the phenomenon involves packing lunch in containers that get reused, not disposed of, as well as cloth napkins and reusable utensils. On a larger scale, schools and business cafeterias intent on reducing waste choose to use recyclable or reusable plates and cups, and compost their food scraps.

“The interest in no-waste lunch is growing at a surprising rate,” says Sandra Ann Harris, founder of ECOlunchboxes, a company in Lafayette that makes stainless steel lunch containers and fabric bags and napkins.

When Harris started the company in 2009, she says, “Only the deeper green people were seeking out products like ours, but that’s really changing.” … <read more>

Excerpt from Organic Connections Magazine

There are many people (you likely know one or two yourself) who will occasionally have brilliant ideas to help one or another of the planet’s big problems. There is a severe dividing line, though, between those who have such ideas and those who actually set out to implement them.

Take, for example, the mom who became conscientious about the amount of plastic she was consuming and throwing away just packing daily lunches for her two children. Not only was discarding plastics an issue, but she had also become informed about chemical compounds such as bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical linked to hormone disruption that is used in the manufacture of various plastic containers and has been found in several studies to leach into food from those containers.

“I have two little kids, and I just wasn’t finding what I wanted in terms of lunch solutions,” Sandra Ann Harris, founder of ECOlunchbox, told Organic Connections. …<read more>