Whatever Happened to the Lunch Box?

Karen Youso is the Home and Garden columnist over at the St. Paul Star Tribune, and she has a thing or two to say about plastic bags — specifically, their inferiority when it comes to packing a lunch. A reader wrote in with a simple question: “Which is better environmentally, packing sandwiches in plastic bags or aluminum foil?” Youso fired off an excellent answer: neither.

The edge goes to aluminum foil, mainly because recycling keeps it out of the environment and reduces use of natural resources.

If you’re wondering if wax paper bags would be better, surprisingly, they aren’t. They’d come in third, or maybe tied for second. It takes more energy to create wax paper bags than plastic, according to National Geographic’s Green Guide.

The best choice for packing a sandwich is one you didn’t mention — a reusable container.

Snaps! Youso gets extra points for giving her readers the run-down on the dangers of plastic bags and their tendency to be made of non-renewable and unsustainable resources. You tell them, Ma’am! If you want to check out what she has to say on plastic bags (as well as how best to remove Brasso build-up from your valuable brass objects), check out the full article here.

Photo via Flickr!

Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 11:06 am and is filed under The Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.