If you pack your kids' lunches for school, or you brown bag it yourself for work, consider packing in a reusable lunch box or canvas bag instead of using a paper or plastic ba... read full tip

If you pack your kids' lunches for school, or you brown bag it yourself for work, consider packing in a reusable lunch box or canvas bag instead of using a paper or plastic bag that gets thrown away. You can also replace disposable wrappers and bags with reusable containers for sandwiches, snack foods, desserts, fruit, and drinks.

Using reusable containers will save you money. If you eliminate the disposable packaging, you'll not only reduce waste, but you'll avoid the need to purchase baggies, paper lunch sacks, as well as drink boxes, pudding cups, and other foods packed (excessively) as individual servings. For most products, you're charged a premium (sometimes more than twice the cost to package the product yourself) for the convenience of buying individual servings. That adds up to about ten cents on every dollar you spend on packaged foods. A family of four could save as much as $3,000 per year by avoiding disposable containers and single-serving size packages.

You'll also help reduce waste. The average student produces between 45 and 90 pounds of garbage per school year in lunch packaging alone!

If every K-12 student who currently brings a lunch from home packed with reusable containers just one day per week for the entire school year, the packaging waste saved across the country could total more than 450 million pounds-equal to the weight of nearly 23,000 full-size school buses.