Who: PlanetBox – San Rafael, CA

What: PlanetBox Lunchbox

Where: Amazon – $59.95

Why We Love It: We are always on the lookout for lunch boxes that make packing, cleaning, toting and reusing safe and easy, and the PlanetBox delivers. It’s a tv dinner tray meets bento box with a compartmental design based on the general nutritional standards for children. So when packing up your child’s lunch (or your own lunch!), you’ll have plenty of space to pack a healthy, well-balanced lunch. Specifically a good option for picky who don’t like their foods to ‘touch’ where the top and bottom of the lids touch so there is no spillage between compartments.

PlanetBoxes are made from the same high quality food safe stainless steel that’s used in hospitals and commercial kitchens; free of lead, phthalates, and BPA so there is no worry of toxins leaching into your food. The steel itself contains up to 60% recycled content and is 100% recyclable. The collection of coordinating magnets to decorate your PlanetBox are made of a synthetic rubber material, not toxic PVC like most magnets.

Steel and metal sourced from Korea and Japan. Manufactured in Taiwan

Who: Specialty Bottle – Seattle, WA

What: Clear Top Tin Containers

Where: Specialty Bottle -  Round Tins, Square Tins & Rectangular Tins – $0.63 – $1.25/each! (Bulk discounts available too!)

Why We Love It: Ever since reading Time Magazines “The  Perils of Plastics“, and learning more and more about the dangers of the unregulated chemicals and toxins found in plastics – seriously, it’s frightening – we’ve been on a mission to cut down on the amount of plastic in our lives, particularly in the kitchen. We’ve weaned ourselves off of plastic water bottles, plastic baggies, ziplok bags, but the last thing to go has been our plastic tupperware containers. We’ve been using empty salsa and pasta sauce jars for leftover soups, but we just haven’t found a viable or affordable alternative for the rest of  our leftovers. We’ve found a majority of the glass or stainless steel containers run around $10 each, so we’d easily be spending $100 and still not have enough containers to get us through the week… Click to continue »

Who: ReSnackIt – CT

What: ReUsable Sandwich Bags

Where: ReSnackIt – snack size – $7.99, sandwich size – $9.99 (Buy 3 or more ReSnackIts and receive 10% off)

Why We Love It: If we are going to change the way we consume, it helps to start with kids. We’ve seen 4 year olds reach for their reusable bottles and reusable snack bags, and they’ll certainly be reaching for them if they are as fun and brightly colored as the reusable snack and sandwich bags from ReSnackIt. With bags like these, who needs Ziplok? Not only do they help reduce waste being trucked to landfills (think about it, approximately 20 million plastic baggies are thrown away in US schools every week, every week! That’s insanity!), but they also keep harmful chemicals like lead, phthalates, BPAs and PVCs away from our food. Click to continue »

Who: Kor – Fountain Valley, CA

What: “Thirst for Giving” Special Edition Vessels

Where: Amazon.com – $35 (See also the KOR ONE BPA Free Hydration Vessel for $25.99)

Why We Love It: We first spotted the Kors Hydration Vessel at the Green Pavilion of the Architectural Digest Home show last year. Huge fans of the bright colors, the slick cylindrical shape and the innovative flip-top cap hinged to stay in place – no more running around the house in search of our missing screw top caps. The wide-mouthed top also fits ice cubes quite nicely so you can enjoy cool beverages. Another nice feature, for klutzs like ourselves, is the grippy bottom to help avoid inadvertent spills. This is a good sized water bottle, much taller than standard models on the market, but the cylindrical shape fits nicely in the plam of your hand (even our small hands!) Click to continue »

Who: Earthlust; San Francisco, CA

What: Black Flower Stainless Steel Water Bottle

Where: Earthlust – $18 (Subscribers to The Find get 15% off through 12/31)

Why We Love It: Tis’ the season to trade in your single-use water bottles for a totally chic, totally durable reusable stainless steel water bottle from Earthlust. The bottles are made of a double-walled food grade stainless steel that is 100% PVC and BPA-free.  Even the caps are BPA-free, so you can be sure that this bottle is safe to use time and time again.

The bottles are coated with a non-toxic paint featuring gorgeous nature-inspired designs, most of which are limited edition. The problem is, with so many great designs to choose from, it is hard to choose just one! Click to continue »

Jeanne Haegele opted for a ‘life less plastic’ by trying to go without plastics–easier said than done.

More and more evidence suggests that plastics can be harmful to our health. Specifically Bisphenol-a (BPA), the chemical used to harden plastics found in most water bottles, linings of canned foots and plastic utensils, Phthalates, used to soften plastics and found in toys and vinyl shower curtains, and BPDE’s a flame retardent found in wires and cables. All of these have been shown to have adverse affects on our health.

Here are some simple ways to lessen your exposure to harmful plastics: Click to continue »

And here are just a few reasons why you should……

1) Single water bottles are contributing to our waste dilemma. About 1/5 of those produced don’t get recycled, and those that do get recycled still require significant amounts of energy to be repurposed. Even with companies like Poland Springs introducing new designs that used less plastic in their water bottles, they still use plastic to bottle a resource that is readily available in most U.S. homes.

2) Bottling water is incredibly inefficient. The resources, both raw materials and oil, used in the production, packaging, transporting and recycling of water bottles is criminal. The Pacific Institute estimated that in 2006, 17 million barrels of oil were used to produce water bottles to satisfy the US demand (this does not include the energy involved in transporting a heavy commodity like water), creating 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide (and this does not include that created disposal in a landfill or recycling center) and, this one is shocking, it took 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water!!! That is just crazy. Particularly where so much of the world’s population does not even have access to clean drinking water, but I digress……

3) Plastics can be harmful to your health. It is recommended to not reuse single use water bottles as toxic chemicals known as BPA’s can be leached from the plastic.

4) The standards for contaminants are as strict if not stricter than those for bottled water, so you are not necessarily getting a ‘purer’ product. In addition, some of that bottled water you are buying is actually filled from a tap.

5) It is cheaper! Forgo the $1.29 bottle of water and just fill up from the tap. You’ll be paid back on your investment in a stainless steel or BPA-free water bottle in no time. This from the New York Times: “If you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents.”

6) Many claim they use single use water bottles because they are more convenient, but I would argue that my Sigg water bottle is far more convenient. Last minute road trip? Instead of going to the store to pick up a water bottle, I simply grab my water bottle from the cupboard and fill it up with ice cold water from the fridge and I am good to go. And I can refill at the next stop.

7) There are so many cute water bottles out there to choose from!! Check out REI’s inventory of BPA free water bottles or Klean Kanteen’s, EarthLust, Enviro and Siggs lines of stainless steel water bottles. Just got a sneak peek of the 2009 line of Siggs waterbottles, and they are gloooorious!!