Greener Lunch Options

As back to school time approaches, be sure to make green choices for your kid's lunches this year. Using plastic bags for sandwiches and other lunchtime goodies can have a major impact on the environment. Plastic bags are the most dangerous type of litter found in the ocean, when they float on the surface they are mistaken for jellyfish and are ingested by sea turtles and other marine life.

So what are safer options? For sandwiches check out Wrap-N-Mat reusable sandwich wraps which double as placemats - www.wrap-n-mat.com For the other goodies, use reusable plastic containers, just make sure the plastics you choose are BPA free. For a great lunchbox system, check out Laptop Lunches www.laptoplunches.com the lunch system comes with containers that are lead, phthalate, and BPA free and they fit perfectly in the lunchbox - no more searching for a container that fits!. For drinks be sure to use a reusable stainless steel or aluminum bottle.

As far as greener choices for the lunch itself - be sure to pack healthy fruits and veggies from the farmers market or the organic section at the grocery store. Try making some delicious wraps made with whole wheat tortillas or even leftovers can make a delicious lunch.

Food Drive to help animals in the local shelter

In order to give back to the community, my shop is co-sponsoring with Pawsatively Dapper a pet food drive to help feed the dogs and cats at the local shelter. The area shelters are taking in a large number of unwanted pets and stray animals, especially kittens. They need the support of the community to help care for all the animals up for adoption. Our family recently fostered a family of young kittens to help ease the overcrowding at the shelter. By raising the kittens at our house until they were old enough to be adopted, the kittens stayed healthier, learned to interact with people, and eased the burden on the shelter to feed the kittens. It was a great experience for our family and when we returned the kittens to be adopted we adopted an older cat for our family. The employees at the shelter have the very difficult job of dealing with all the unwanted animals in our community, but are always friendly and helpful, they are truly amazing individuals. Please help us support the shelter by dropping off pet food donations at the store located at 528 East New Haven in Downtown Melbourne.

Exciting News

Sorry I haven't been writing lately, but life has been crazy around here and for good reason - I opened a green boutique. Since writing this blog I have encountered so many people who are interested in living greener, but can't find all the great green products locally. I have been so busy getting the shop ready, I haven't had a moment to blog, but now that I am open I will be writing more. The shop is located in Downtown Melbourne in a historic building. My neighbors are a yoga studio and a holistic healing center, so I am in good company. In the remodel of the shop, which was once offices, we reused a lot of materials that would have ended up in the dumpster. All the display pieces are recycled from my house, thrift store finds, or garage sale items reducing the shop's environmental impact. The store and displays are painted with low-VOC paints and we used a biodegradable low odor adhesive remover to restore the terrazzo floors which had been carpeted over. The store is stocked with my favorite earth friendly products and some great new finds. I am working on the store's website and hope to launch it soon. While I will profile some of the great products I have found on the blog, it will not be a series of commercials for the store. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by the shop & say hi - Chartreuse Life 528 E. New Haven Ave. Melbourne, FL 32901.

Environmental Movie?

My daughter and I went to see the new Pixar movie Wall-E last week and we loved it! It was a thought provoking movie that addresses the way we treat our planet while telling a cute story. In the movie,Wall-E is a trash-collecting robot left on the abandoned Earth. Humans have been forced to leave the Earth 700 years earlier and live on large spacecraft reminiscent of a cruise ship. The humans no longer walk but ride in space chairs while constantly watching video monitors and consuming food. Wall-E falls in love with Eve a robot sent to Earth to search for signs of life. The story tells of Wall-E and Eve's adventures and exposes the problems with the humans' new way of life.
Unfortunately while the message of the movie is a very important one - we must change our way of living in order for life to survive on the Earth, the marketing of this movie will add to the trash on this Earth. When we purchased our tickets we were given a Wall-E watch wrapped in plastic with several advertisements for another Disney movie. I'm sure the watch will probably break in a month and end up in a landfill - wise up Pixar and be part of the solution, not part of the problem.