Lower lunchtime impact. Between brown bags, baggies and other packaging waste, school lunches generate a heap of trash. Instead, encourage kids to pick colorful reusable lunchboxes they can use again and again.
Bento-style boxes add kid-friendly fun while keeping food separated so you can skip plastic baggies. Another earthfriendly suggestion for school lunch: instead of single-serve products, buy larger bulk packages you can use to fill reusable containers.
Manage transportation. Getting kids to and from school affects the environment in multiple ways, from energy consumption to pollution. You can reduce your family’s impact by having kids ride the bus or carpooling with others in your neighborhood.
Avoid idling while at school pickup and drop off, and advocate for your school district to use clean energy options, like electric, for its transportation fleet. Electric vehicles make sense for several uses, including the passenger cars parents use to drive their students to school.
Stop water waste. Over the past year, access to water fountains has been significantly limited to prevent the spread of germs. That means many school districts are more receptive to having kids bring water bottles from home. Sending your little learners off with reusable bottles offers a win-win that reduces reliance on plastic bottles and other single-serve beverage containers, while also encouraging kids to practice healthy habits by staying hydrated throughout the day.
Skip the supply splurge. While there’s something exciting about breaking open a brand new box of crayons or markers, it’s not really necessary to buy all new supplies year after year. Reusing what gets sent home at the end of the year saves money, and prevents waste of still-functional supplies that would otherwise take up space in landfills.
Encourage resourceful recycling. Get kids excited about recycling by designing and decorating recycling bins using leftover materials around the house. When it’s fun, and they’ve had a hand in creating the tools, kids are more likely to remember to put recycling in its place. And be sure to save and reuse things that are still useful instead of putting them into the recycling. Reuse is much more energy efficient than recycling!
Include the whole family. Family time can be a precious commodity while school is in session, so make it meaningful when you can by bringing everyone together for a cause.
Take the family to a local repurposing or recycling center for an afternoon of volunteering, or gather everyone for a pickup day at a nearby park.
School is often the center of kids’ worlds, so bringing lessons about protecting the environment into the education setting is a natural way to introduce them to ideas for protecting the Earth and its resources.