Boomerang Waste, Skiing and Owwies

People that know me know that I care about the environment and in many ways I take it quite seriously. Obviously there is only so much that we can do but I try to do what I can. (Reduce, reuse, recycle, compost, worms, green bin etc etc - I do it). The kids school has recently initiated a concept called "Boomerang Waste" which involves taking a ziplock bag in your lunchbag and bringing home any waste that is a result of your lunch. They are trying it one day a week to start, then adding another and so on. This should significantly reduce the waste that the school generates. Great idea. I'm all for this. I guess I am struggling with why I find this an issue.

First of all, the school's recycling program is quite poor. I don't understand why their recycling varies so drastically from the local residential recycling. For quite a while they weren't getting their milk containers picked up and were considering scrapping the whole program after parents didn't like getting the empty container back in the kids lunch bags (we get get milk on Pizza Fridays a few times a month). Our local recycling takes construction paper - the school's does not. My child's classroom throws out plastic straws and other objects that go in our blue box at home. The amount of food waste that goes out, as well as paper towel and kleenex which we put in our green bin is astounding and sad.

We as a 5-person family generally put out 1 plastic grocery bag full of garbage a week. Everything else is either recycled or green binned or composted.

But back to the boomerang waste. We as a family don't really need it. We use plastic containers that get filled up daily and washed if necessary (definitely weekly). They were cheap (Dollar store) and are colour-coded for each family member. For us it works. I try to avoid the use of plastic bags after seeing the devastation they do to the environment. We even re-use all of our ziplock bags (not usually for food but for projects, toys etc). [TIP - I actually put them in the washing machine inside-out and then hang them to dry. No work!] This method sometimes takes more time - but usually not - I just have an assembly line method, and is actually cheaper - and no waste. We use a cloth lunch bag which gets thrown in the wash weekly and for some reason we don't find leaking to be an issue. We have a refillable water bottle for each child. Friends laugh at my bin of mini containers but the kids know which snacks are for which kid, it's good portion sizes and it's cheap. And I find it easy.

A typical lunch includes the following:

• water bottle
• sandwich (not for Marlee)
• dried snack x2 (teddy grahams/ fishy crackers/ ritz bits/ animal crackers/ muffin/ loaf/ bear paw - no wrapper)
• "wet" snack x2 (cut apple/ grapes/ clementine/ melon)
• yogurt in container
• Veggies (carrots/ celery/ cucumber with dip)

So conclusion? A great idea, although the use of the plastic bag concerns me - and bottom line - I hope that the idea behind it will catch on and that families will be more creative with their packing. It can be done!

Skiing and Owwies

Seeing Marlee today reminded me of her weekend. We were all able to go skiing on Sunday - and the weather was so nice that we stayed for another hour after the lessons. Marlee went down the family hill 3 times! It was really nice to actually ski as a family - it was our first time!

It wasn't without incident though! Halfway down her second time she got a little tired so Drew tucked her between his legs to guide her down. I guess he caught an edge and in trying to avoid damage actually landed on top of her. From behind it was quite the sight! She was a trooper and only has a bump on her lip and her eye to show for it. She was up and ready to go again. Drew was a little worse for wear (just his fatherly pride) but the next run was her best yet. And now she has another photo to add to her Owwie book.