Green Boot Camp: Week Sixteen–Packing Green Lunches

This post offer ways to green a brown bag lunch (tip #1–ditch the brown bag), whether you pack it for yourself to take to work or for your kids to take to school or camp.

When it comes to reusable bags, I don’t care what my bags look like or where I got them. As long as they can hold my groceries so that I don’t have to take paper or plastic bags when I checkout, I’m happy. Others may feel a bit differently. To them reusable bags should be aesthetically pleasing or perhaps they want them all to match. It’s in the latter scenario that I imagine most people are purchasing a supermarket’s reusable bag, and I must admit–some of them are quite pretty. The bags that Whole Foods is selling, now that it has banned plastic at the checkout counter, are fun and colorful as are the bags I’ve seen in my local SuperFresh, which is part of the A&P company.

As far as supermarkets go, you can’t judge its environmental mission by its reusable bags, but you can give it props for trying. For example, Kroger (where I would grocery shop when we lived in Michigan) just announced a “Design a Kroger Reusable Shopping Bag” contest. You don’t have to be a Kroger customer to enter, but it probably makes sense: the winner gets a $500 Kroger gift card. The 10 runners up each receive a free reusable bag featuring the winning design.

It’s not like Kroger is waiting for the winning design to begin offering reusable bags. You can already pick them up in the store (if you’re so inclined to pay for them), including an insulated bag (it costs $2.99). Now that’s a great idea for ensuring your perishables don’t, well, perish on the drive home.

Are you aware of other supermarkets offering these kinds of contests? I’d love to hear about them and maybe feature something about them here–especially if it’s a supermarket near you. Then others who live in your geographical area could consider entering the contest and, who knows, they might win something cool like that $500 gift card.