Breakfast: good for you and the planet!

Many teens either skip breakfast or grab something starchy and sugary on the way to school. However, from a nutritional point of view, breakfast is the most important part of the day. The solution? A fast and easy breakfast smoothie. You can make your own with protein powder, yogurt and frozen berries, or try Vega smoothie mixes. They have protein for energy, plus all your vitamins and minerals to start the day right. Vega compared its Whole Food Optimizer to a “traditional North American breakfast” including hashbrowns, eggs and bacon, and a “light North American breakfast” including yogurt, cereal and banana. According to the Vega website, there are 38 times more greenhouse gas emissions created by traditional breakfast and 10 times more greenhouse gases created by the light breakfast compared to Vega. Thus, switching to Vega for a year would be equivalent to turning off a 60 watt light bulb for 12,500 hours, or 521 consecutive days (Source: http://sequelnaturals.com/).

Transportation

If no school bus is provided for your school, consider car-free ways of getting to and from class every day. Walk, bike, or create a “walking school bus”, where a group of children walk to school supervised by one or more adult. It’s safer in numbers, easy on the planet, good physical activity and simple for parents, who can take turns supervising. Visit http://www.walkingschoolbus.org/ for more details. If all else fails, carpool or take transit.

Waste-Free Lunch

• Use stainless steel water bottles instead of plastic disposable ones. As I’ve mentioned before, stainless steel is non-toxic, durable, easy to clean and does not rust. Green Bottle (http://www.greenbottleonline.com/) has plenty of fun designs kids will love to brag about to their classmates. They come in 12 oz, 20 oz and 25 oz sizes with a variety of lids including sport tops.
• Look for non-toxic, BPA free Tupperware such as Preserve. Some companies like By Nature and Bento Box Systems offer complete lunch sets for kids including cloth napkins, reusable bags and storage containers. Nubius Organics sells toxin-free reusable cutlery made from bamboo.

Clothes

For back to school clothing shopping, thrift stores are the way to go. Treasure hunting at second hand stores can be just as much fun as showing off the new fashions. It’s amazing to see how many designer labels and never-worn items there are. Plus, kids and teens love having unique pieces that’ll be the envy of all their friends.

For new clothes, even the biggest stores such as Roots Canada, H & M and The Gap are jumping on the organic cotton bandwagon for kids clothes. It’s never been easier to find eco-friendly clothing close to home and at reasonable prices. Just make sure the percentage of organic fibre is high—be wary of 10% organic cotton/90% polyester blends! Bamboo, hemp and soy are other great earth-friendly fabrics.

Supplies

• Before school starts, sort through supplies from the previous years and keep whatever possible. You’ll be saving money in the process.
• Refillable pens and pencils are a smart alternative to disposables. Or, if you prefer, Earthzone pencils are made out of 100% post consumer recycled newspapers—no wood used!
• Paints should be water, not oil based.
• From binders to notebooks, avoid PVC plastic, instead opting for cardboard and paper. In all your paper purchases, look for recycled and non-chlorine bleached options. Remember that unless it says “Post-consumer waste” it may be scrap paper that never left the factory. Try Ecojot Notebooks—they come in cute, stylish patterns and are 100%  post-consumer recycled. For printer paper, most big brand retailers offer recycled options as well. Along the same lines, reduce before you re-use—don’t print rough copies of assignments unless absolutely necessary.
• Backpacks should ideally be made from all-natural materials, such as durable hemp. Otherwise, check out PVC free options at http://www.nubiusorganics.com.

At-School Projects

Environmental class projects don’t have to be reserved for Earth day. There are tons of fun ways to encourage environmental activism to suggest to teachers and school staff. Younger children may enjoy taking nature walks, going on field trips to the recycling depot, and planting trees in the school yard. Students in older grades may wish to start a class vegetable garden and school compost project, or petition for organic options in their school cafeteria.

Photo credit: ccarlstead

It wasn’t that long ago that I was a student, and I was using green ideas as a simple way of saving money. As a student, money is really tight, so you need to be economical in order to survive with the smallest amount of debt. So here are my top ideas that I used when I was at University.

Make your own meals in bulk
If you can learn how to cook easy meals such as Spaghetti Bolognese, Chill Con Carne, Chicken Curry, Beef Stew, you can make them in bulk and freeze the leftovers. I found that I could make at least 4 portions per meal, sometimes as many as 8. These meals typically scale very well. So when you make the meal, you get a fresh meal that evening and freeze the rest. When you’re feeling lazy, you just need to re-heat one of your frozen left-over meals. You just need to cook the pasta or rice to go with the meal!

You save money by buying the ingredients in bulk as well as saving packaging that you would otherwise get from microwave meals. I still use this tip to this day, giving myself a nice cooked lunch for work.

Don’t buy textbooks
Textbooks are very expensive in the UK, costing around £20 to £50 each ($40 to $100!). Therefore you can save a fortune by buying books with friends or borrowing books from your library. If you go to a library, remember to get there fast, before the other students borrow the books first!

Don’t have a car
Cars are costly things anyway, with fuel, tax, insurance and maintenance costs, they can be very pricey. Get used to using buses, trains, bicycles and walking. You’ll get to know the area better as well as saving money and the environment. Some of the best conversations I’ve ever had have been with people I’ve met on the bus or train!

Switch stuff off and use energy saving lightbulbs
Bills can be quite frightening when in a student house. Living with 5 other people, I found that electricity bills were sky high. Thankfully I managed to convince them to switch stuff off where possible and they were happy to use energy saving light bulbs.