No More Plastic Snack Bag Waste Here!

A big waste that I’ve been battling around here is plastic snack baggies and this seemed like a great time to tackle that problem what with zero waste week and the ditch the disposables challenge happening.

I’ve been able to eliminate them for leftovers, those all go into glass storage bowls now, but I’ve been having a heck of a time getting rid of them for the boy’s school snacks. Lunches I can use containers, but morning snack really needs a bag since they eat it outside.

I mentioned earlier some cloth snack bags that I found online and I was actually going to buy a bunch, but to make a long story short I didn’t. So I’ve been sending the boys to school with plastic ones and telling them not to throw them away but to bring them home instead.

Tyler’s been absolutely great about this, Dylan on the other hand, not so much.

So I went online once again and thought, I could make that. Well, actually I thought my mom could make that.

So that’s exactly what we did. My mom went to the fabric store (she couldn’t wait for me to get back from the movies with the boys) and got the perfect fabric. Because she was making them for me she hunted down a fabric store that sold organic cotton to make them out of.

For $13 my mom bought three ¼ yard strips and some Velcro and she’ll probably be able to make 24 pouches. For that same price I could have bought 2 pouches online not including shipping.

We decided on the size by using a graham cracker (yes, I said graham cracker) and just made the pattern a little wider and a little taller.

I watched my mom make them and they actually look like something that even I could make and I don’t have a crafty bone in my body. Yeah, my mom wonders how that happened too. She just stitched up the sides and then put a small stitch at the top to keep it from flopping open.



Then to keep it closed she added a small square of Velcro. She went with a small piece so that it would be easy for Dylan to open at school, but if youre worried about food falling out I'd suggest a strip that goes from one end to the other of the pouch.



And voila, you have a pouch!



My mom made three of them on Monday night and the boys each took one to school yesterday. I reminded Dylan a few times that these pouches do not get thrown away and showed Tyler how they easily fold up so that it will fit in his pocket when he’s done with it.

When the boys got home I held my breath as I opened Dylan’s bag to see if the pouch had made it home….and yes, there it was! I was so proud, he was so proud, it was great!

And I am beyond excited to be rid of plastic baggies!