Bag Your Own Potato Chips

Instead of buying the small single-serving packages of chips for lunches, buy one large package and do the bagging yourself. You'll not only save money, but you'll reduce the amount of waste that goes to the landfill-especially if you pack the chips in reusable containers.

If you regularly buy the individually packaged potato chips, you could save about $60 per year merely by purchasing single large bags, and doling out the servings yourself. As for packaging, the total packaging for a dozen half-ounce bags of chips creates 90 percent more waste than the packaging for a single six-ounce bag.

If for just three weeks per school year, every K-12 student bagged their own chips in a reusable container instead of bringing pre-packaged chips in their lunch, the total savings would equal roughly $11 million-enough to supply America's public schools with 180,000 new math and science textbooks. To boot, the reduction in waste would total 1.75 million pounds-enough potato chip wrappings to stuff 250 classrooms full from floor to ceiling.

University of Wisconsin
Stanford Recycling News (PDF)
National Consumers League Packaging Report
U.S. Census (PDF)