Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Waste Free Lunches

Good Wednesday Morning!

Every morning Tara and I pack lunch for our kids. The kids' school encourages parents to pack waste-free lunches. We want to encourage you to ask your school to do the same--to spread the word that garbage cannot just be reduced but totally eliminated at lunch time.

Here are some of my kids' typical lunch contents and how they are packaged:
  • sandwich (wrapped in a wrap-n-mat) [which we sell at CarrotSeed)
  • soup (packed in thermos)
  • yogurt (purchased in quart-size from the store and served in a reusable tupperware container)
  • applesauce (ditto)
  • cheese booty (purchased in large bag, served in tupperware)
  • hummus (purchased in pint or quart size and packed in tupperware)
  • oreos (purchased in large pack, packed in tupperware)
  • carrots (ditto)
  • an apple or orange (no packaging at all)
  • cloth napkin
  • real utensils to eat any of the above
Our kids are in the habit of bringing all their tupperware home and the utensils. We wash them out and they are good to go the next day. The key to this is staying away from all those snack-size, lunch-size packages - 4 oreos, small bags of carrots, small yogurts, etc.

Our kids' school also has compost bins outside each building. Encourage your school to do the same--this way the leftover banana peels, orange rinds, etc. can go right in the compost. If your school won't go along with composting, then ask your child to bring his/her leftovers home and you can compost them yourself!

Good luck. Love to hear your comments!

Jerry

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Wonderful Day at Green Festival!

It was an action-packed day at the Washington DC Green Fest. We guess that there were 10 to 15 thousand people attending. The CarrotSeed exhibit was busy all day long.


A big highlight for us was all the children who came along to draw pictures of what "green meant to them." We plan to look through drawings and perhaps select one as a design for a new CarrotSeed shopping bag, created by one of these talented young artists!


Folks at the Green Festival went all in for Wrap-N-Mats, which you can find on our site, and which are an easy alternative to single use sandwich wraps/bags. And our Earth Day Every Day and This Bag is Green totes were selling like hotcakes, as were the ChicoBags and b.happy bags! (All are also available by clicking on the Shop link from our home page.)


Hope you can make it tomorrow - hours are 11 to 6 at the Washington DC Convention Center, between 7th St and 9th St on L, accessible by metro.


See you there!


Tara and Jerry

Friday, November 7, 2008

Welcome to CarrotSeed's New Site!

We are delighted after many months to launch our new website!! We hope you'll look all around, see what we've posted and check out the many alternatives we offer to single-use products. We believe it can be easy to be green!

We hope all those coming to the Coop America Green Festival here in Washington have a great time. We will be there. The program runs from 10 to 7 on Saturday and 11 to 6 on Sunday. In addition to CarrotSeed, there will be a host of other great companies and non-profits that can help you on your way to a lower impact lifestyle.

Please feel free to shoot us an email anytime you like with questions or comments. You can reach us at jerryandtara@carrotseed.net!

Peace,

Jerry & Tara