I’m a fan of the waste free lunch. The last thing I want to do is send my kids or husband off with a trash filled lunch. Even more important is to keep their food safe. My family also appreciates a lunch that still resembles the food it is when they open it several hours after I’ve packed it.

Enter my new favorite way to pack lunches, LunchSense. These innovative lunch systems meet every requirement I have! They enable a waste free lunch, are made out of safe materials which means my family won’t be ingesting leached in chemicals and the boxes are even machine washable!

What I really love are the inner containers. The lunch boxes come with a set of fully lidded containers made of polypropylene (#5) and the drink containers are polypropylene or polyethylene (#2). In the words of Nancy Owen Myers- founder of LunchSense, “These (plastics) are considered by GreenPeace and others as “food-safe”, but I prefer to use the term “time-tested”.”

More information and contest after the jump.

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This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of Proforma Green, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Jetline is entering the nonwoven market strong this season. As I mentioned in another blog Jetline currently has what I think are the lowest cost quality nonwoven shopping totes on the market today.

Now Jetline has just introduced two new nonwoven messenger style bags. This is a great idea because shopping totes are fine but they are a little boring. These new messenger bags are great for Ecopreneurists that target colleges, schools and generally a younger, hipper crowd.

But are they green? As most folks now poly nonwoven bags are made from plastic - polyprop is an oil derivative. However many people say, “so what, they are cheap, reusable and long lasting, they keep tradional plastic bags out of the landfills and trees on the mountains”.

Proforma Green sells messenger bags that are organic cotton and PET. A number of vendors can supply such bags. But because these messengers are nonwovens and from Jetline they are very cheap. For example we sell the Value Nonwoven Messenger Bag at $0.99 with one color imprint for a minimum run of 200 bags.

But again, are they green?

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Why can’t the makers of yogurt switch plastics? For one thing, as yogurt maker Stonyfield Farms has discovered, making the lightweight plastic tubs out of #5 plastics actually saves resources and uses less plastic overall.

By using #5 plastic instead of #2, each year we prevent the manufacture and disposal of over 100 tons of plastic, resulting in environmental savings from the decreased air emissions and resource depletion from the manufacture and distribution of the packaging. In addition, the polypropylene is manufactured without the use of chlorine, thus eliminating the hazards of deadly dioxin releases during manufacture and incineration, which occur with certain other plastics.

However, even if wide-mouthed containers were made from #2 plastics (and many are), they might not be getting recycled anyway. While recycling companies may accept all #2 plastics to avoid consmer confusion, some just recycle bottles and not wide-mouthed containers since these different shapes are molded using different processes and have different melting points.

So should you stop eating yogurt? Not necessarily. Unlike other yogurt manufacturers, to further reduce their impact, Stonyfield created a partnership with Recycline, makers of Preserve toothbrushes and razors, to give #5 plastic containers another life. If your local recycling program does not accept #5 plastic containers, you can send clean Stonyfield cups to Stonyfield Farms to ensure your yogurt cups stay out of the landfill.

Visit Planetsave to find out how to help Stonyfield Farms fight climate change.

Entry updated 9/28/07 to reflect that soda and water bottles are made with #1 plastics and #2 plastics, not just #2 as previously stated.