My husband takes his lunch to work in a bento box. Serves the same purpose, and keeps everything hot or cold as needed!

If this is really a novel idea in the US, then I will start to seriously worry about our futures. I was using reusable lunchboxes (along with the rest of my classmates) when I started school 20-odd years ago, on the other side of the Atlantic. This box is in a slightly different form, but it just seems to be a refinement of the same principle.

Are people so wasteful that they need to be told to use a reusable box instead of buying disposable packaging?

I used a laptop lunch box for about a year and gave up on it. the lid doesn't completely seal closed so you can't put a lot of foods in it since they could leak. Also the fact that its a plastic means that overtime it gets scratches and absorbs the food smells. Finally, its a real pain to wash and oil from foods are especially hard to wash out of it. Washing it was a 15-20 minute chore I had to repeat EVERYDAY. I wouldn't reccomend this product to anyone, I found it to be a nightmare.

Of course while it uses no plastic bags this means that the lunchbox needs to be washed every day, and it looks kind of hard to clean (with all those deep narrow compartments each with 4 corners), and too big to fit efficiently in a dishwasher. I suspect the additional use of water and labor outweighs any advantage of the non using of plastic bags.

I have been sending three kids to school with waste free lunches for 10 years on the oldest and 5 years on the youngest. I use Frigo containers, stainless steel containters from Pearl River, and if they want ranch dressing for their carrots, I save the jars from gift size of jams and jellies. They do not leak. Occasionally I use waxed paper bags. I throw everything in the dishwasher. I try to avoid plastic containers. My kids know to bring home stuff, and it is part of teaching them that the world is not disposable.

Here is the deal, it is not that hard!!!!!!!! If we are going to avert serious environmental issues we all will have to step up to the plate and do something, and those of us in affluent societies more than most. I am kind of tired of folks saying it is hard to change, it is our only option, and all you have to do is set up a consistant sytem that works.

Ok, Crochety old lady moment over.... Back to sweetness and light.

To Robert: Yes, most people in the US are that wasteful.

Honestly, I feel a lot of the time that we have no choice. Recycling is not available where I live. I would have to collect it all myself and drive 40 miles to the nearest center to drop it off, and even then, they only take paper, glass, and #2 plastic. I live in a rural area, so driving is a necessity. The nearest grocery store is 10 miles away, and I have a family of four, so riding a bike with that many groceries is just not possible.

Sure, that alone doesn't force me from doing what I can -- switching my lightbulbs, using cotton cloths instead of paper towels or disposable sponges, only having one family car, packing my lunches with reusable containers and silverware, and bringing totes I've sewed with me to grocery stores instead of using the plastic bags. I've gotten my girls involved as well, and I think the littlest one is the most anal when it comes to being green. She gets really angry at people for not respecting the earth or recycling, and she's not afraid to let people know, haha. She about went off on her 1st grade teacher for not using paper wisely and wasting too much.

I am good at wasting one thing, though -- time! Back to work. :)

Lunch boxes are not new in the US... we just tend to get elitist about them. There is the widespread perception that lunch boxes are "just for kids", or we associate lunch boxes with blue collar professions such as construction work. Either of those perceptions can greatly hurt the chances of something being widely adopted here.

Not to mention the fact that most of the time when people here do manage to pack a lunch box, the items inside are usually wrapped in plastic wrap or plastic baggies.

This seems to be an attempt to up-size and Americanize the traditional Japanese Bento, as we all know that unfortunately the portion capacities must be doubled to appeal to the American Market. If you look at a traditional Bento, it is about half the size and generally better designed than these Laptop Lunches (which are still a great concept, BTW, just a poor execution). In my opinion, if you really want green, look at the more traditional sources, which would be the thermal stacked Bento or laquered Bamboo with an elastic strap. Kudos for re-usability and cutting down on the plastic baggies, but not so much on the execution.

This is a GREAT lunchbox. All the cups come out of it for easy cleaning and since we have 3 of them I have no trouble having one washed and ready to go. The compartments make it easy to stick in some leftovers from the previous night without having to put them in a plastic bag.

Yes the old style lunchboxes were reusable as well but they had one big compartment and to keep food seperate things were put in sandwich baggies or prepacked food was thrown in there. I seriously doubt moms just through some loose corn on the cob and meatloaf in there like you can with Laptop Lunchboxes.

The portions sizes are small so you don't give them more food than they need...that is a big plus to.

My son's lunches went 100% waste free when we started using this system. And I also use several other bentos.

Oh and if you have a problem keeping it closed...it can happen if too full...just use a rubber band! Easy....and you recycle rubber bands you have laying around.

I used the same five "disposable/reusable" containers to carry my lunch for about three years and they did the job quite well until the lids eventually cracked. After that I switched over completely to a set of plastic Chinese food containers which I had saved. I carried these back and forth in a disposable shopping bag which I reused several times for trading for a new one. For a minimal investmentof money and materials I had an enitrely recyclable but still relatively durable lunch system without the need of a special solution. Maybe people can't get their kids to reuse plastics but I did fine getting many, many more uses out my disposable plastics than the manufacturers would probably like.

My point is that sometimes a low end solution works just as well as a high end one.

I agree that we waste a lot of materials in lunch boxes. My resolution for this school year is not to use ziplok bags.

Also i want to add that I agree with melanie that in some areas ot is hard to recycle, because in our cities there is no rectcling progam. I do recycle and have trips on my way to the grocery store to a recycle bin and i know that im not alone on this, but cities need to implement something soon :(