Strawesome is also a family-owned business with a commitment to health and the environment. They are providing a healthy and reusable alternative to plastic straws, billions of which end up in our landfills every year. Their straws are all hand-made in their workshop in Michigan. Strawesome straws are not only plastic-free and reusable – two of our favorite adjectives – but also beautiful.

Strawesome has generously offered to giveaway a set of two glass smoothie drinking straws, one is 8” long and perfect for adult use while the other is 7” long and bent so that it is easier for a child to use. Each is decorated with unique colored glass to add fun to the design of the product turning it into a functional piece of art!

To enter the giveaway please comment and tell us how you would use this great product. A winner will be randomly chosen and announced on Thursday, May 17, 2012. Congratulations Amy H! You won! We hope you love using your straws while drinking your cold water and cucumber slices.

A few months ago, a customer wrote to me with a surprising complaint. She pointed out that the packing slip on our shipping boxes were in a plastic envelope attached to the outside of the box. Since we weren’t on the receiving end of these packages, we hadn’t realized that our fulfillment company had been doing this. The solution was simple: we asked the warehouse to put the packing slip inside the box.  Thanks to this customer’s feedback, we were able to keep from wasting hundreds of plastic envelopes per month.

Your voices have also helped shape LunchBots, as your feedback greatly influences our product roadmap. Did you know our all-stainless LunchBots were born out of customer’s requests? Many were telling us they preferred the modern look of all steel containers, and others wanted a lid that could go in the dishwasher. The solution was a LunchBots that had stainless steel lids, and we were more than happy to add this to our product lineup. In the next few months, we’ll be adding new products based on what you’ve been asking for!

Since starting LunchBots three years ago, we’ve grown and learned and shared thanks to your feedback, enthusiasm, and plain old smarts. Your compliments have driven us to keep going through all the ups and downs that come with growing a business, and your constructive comments have helped us improve our products and processes over the years.

It’s meant the world to us, and we hope you’ll keep the communication open always. It truly makes a difference.

“The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.” -John Russell

Reading customer feedback via email, Twitter, or on our Facebook page has made me value this kind of communication, and it’s even encouraged me to reach out to other companies regularly. Knowing what a difference your feedback has made to LunchBots, I don’t hesitate to tell others if I’ve had a good experience or if they could use improvement. It’s why I’ve been writing letters and sharing them on the blog. Open, honest communication is what it’s all about. We hope you’ll continue to be a part of it.

Thank you,

Jacqueline Linder

I love Earth Day. It’s a chance for everyone to paint the town green with good deeds like park clean-ups, recycling drives, and promises to ride their bikes more to reduce their carbon footprint. It’s invigorating to see family, friends, even companies get into the spirit as they celebrate our planet and pledge to help preserve it.

There’s so much excitement and anticipation leading up to the big day…and then it pretty much dies down. Actually, it reminds me a lot of New Year’s Eve celebrations and New Year’s resolutions. Don’t you wish the thrill and commitments lasted year-round?

I know that for most of you, it does. You’re the ones who make Earth Day a way of life, always looking for new ways to incorporate sustainability into your day, in big and small actions. You see going green as a way of life rather than a challenge. Nobody has to tell you to use reusable water bottles or bring your own bags to the grocery store. You’ve embraced this lifestyle, and you’re always on the lookout for new ways to help our planet.

So here’s my suggestion: This Earth Day, let’s help inspire others to make a change by showing them how easy it is. Seeing is believing!

On my way to visit family last week, I was filling up my reusable water bottle at the San Francisco Airport filling station and there was a line of people doing the same. I took a few pictures because we can all use new ideas for simple ways to make a difference.

In the days to come, share your Earth-friendly activities and ideas with us. Post a picture on Twitter and use #EarthDay, or share a picture on our Facebook page, or simply email them to few friends. Let’s show the world how small actions can add up to the bigger picture.

Thank you!

Jacqueline Linder

When I saw the ads for your new Perfect Portions bags I did a double-take. Let me get this straight: this new “solution” for freezer burn protection and easy food portioning involves a bag that is meant to be placed in another bag? I was aghast as I watched Rachael Ray take a small portion of meat, wrap it in a plastic baggie several times its size, and then place it in a larger Ziploc.

“Less mess” you say? Not for the environment, and not for consumers who haven’t exactly been losing sleep over how to store their meats. Here’s what does keep me up at night, though:

● About 100 billion plastic bags are used in the US every year, and only about 1% of them get recycled.

● It takes approximately 12 million barrels of oil to make that many plastic bags.

● When they end up in our landfills or our oceans, these single-use bags don’t decompose for centuries, and their toxic chemicals seep into the foodchain.

But I guess those problems don’t compare to the pesky inconvenience of having to portion out meat and poultry. Your bags are supposed to make this task “simpler than ever” but it seems we have different ideas of what simple looks like.

To us, simplicity means less waste, less harmful chemicals, and more responsibility. Perfect Portions are all about more: more single-use plastic, more harm to the environment, and more money spent on a problem that is, frankly, not that big of a deal. If we separate the chicken and freeze it without each piece touching, we can manage just fine.

The companies we admire and respect use innovation to solve real issues, like keeping BPA out of our food cans and producing greener packaging. Your new product is only amplifying a small problem like food portioning, and creating an even bigger environmental hazard.

It’s time to take some responsibility and clean up the real mess at hand here. You can start by stopping the production of these wasteful new products.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline Linder

I’d originally considered writing this letter to Starbucks, nudging them to encourage customers to bring their own reusable cups and up their efforts in reducing waste. But then I realized it takes two. To be fair, Starbucks has offered 10 cent discounts to customers who bring their own cups since 1985. Among many other efforts, they’ve held three Cup Summits, bringing together experts in the product packaging industry to try and come up with ways to make their cups more recyclable.

But still, about 4 billion coffee cups get thrown away each year.

What’s the hold up? And what can we do to help?

The most obvious answer is to not just stop at recycling, but to try and eliminate paper cup waste altogether through reusable cups. The company has said it hopes to serve 25 percent of its beverages in reusable cups by 2015, but admits it’s having a hard time with this goal. Right now less than 2 percent of their drinks are sold this way, despite the 10 cent program and past promotions for free beverages if you brought your own cup.

If discounts and free coffee aren’t motivators enough, I genuinely want to know what is. What keeps you from bringing a reusable cup when you grab your coffee fix in the morning? Are you still looking for the right reusable cup? Is it too hard to clean? Or do you simply forget most of the time?

Let us know what the barriers are and we’ll brainstorm ideas together and compile them in a letter to Starbucks. In the meantime, check out Starbuck’s Make a Difference tool, where you can calculate the personal impact of this small change and pledge to take part.

Let’s figure this out together, one cup at a time.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline Linder

Lately, we’ve heard so much about Campbell’s announcing it will eventually start using BPA-free cans, but I wanted to take a moment to thank you, the one company that’s quietly been doing this since last century.

I realize not many people know you made the switch in 1999, after two years of going back and forth with your can suppliers, who wouldn’t disclose what chemicals were in their linings. Back then, BPA was not the big issue it is now, but new research was surfacing about its effects as a hormone disruptor.

Eden Organic’s president, Michael Potter, didn’t wait for BPA to make big headlines, or for customers to start demanding healthier, non-toxic food packaging. He made the switch because he knew it was the right thing to do. Your cans lined with enamel made from vegetable resin instead of harmful chemicals drove up costs by 15%–not a small number for a small company. Thanks for putting the health of your customers before the health of your bottom line.

Since you pioneered BPA-free lining in food cans, I’ve been thrilled to see several other companies follow suit. But didn’t anyone else find it odd that only smaller manufacturers were taking such initiative? I’m excited that Campbell’s decision will probably alert other major food companies that it’s time to take the toxins out of our food packaging, but I can’t help but wonder: Why did it take the world’s largest soup maker 13 years to take responsibility for the chemicals in their food products?

While Campbell’s announcement is a big deal, it’s also vague, saying they have “plans to make the switch as soon as it can find ‘feasible alternatives.’”

Feasible alternatives? Clearly those alternatives have been feasible for a while now. Let’s hope Campbell’s and the rest of the world catch up soon.

Thanks again for being a pioneer,

Jacqueline Linder

LunchBots has grown every year since 2009 (and we recently moved into an office space!), but what I’m most proud of is that we’ve kept an estimated 10 million plastic baggies out of our landfills thanks to your business and support. As LunchBots has grown we’ve remained a small business at heart, dedicated to quality products, excellent customer service, and equally important, a mission to reduce environmental waste and improve health for everyone.

Our community inspires us to dream even bigger for the future. The feedback on our new products has been incredible. Customers love our pink Duo and purple Uno for the girls, our all stainless containers for teens and adults, and our unique Trios and Quads which are now top sellers. The fan email we receive keeps us focused on our mission and confirms that we are making an impact.

I am very excited about the future. Most of all I’m grateful to have your support as we move forward and strive to make an even bigger difference in reducing the use of plastic. None of this would have been possible without you.

Here’s to a great 2012!

Sincerely,
Jacqueline

Loved your Kirkland brand toilet paper and have happily used it for many years. Today I bought your 36 pack same as always, and when I got home and opened it up I saw that each roll is now individually wrapped in plastic!

Why the change? Do you realize how wasteful this is? I can’t think of a single reason why you would make a switch from something that can be recycled to a material that will now add even more waste to our already full landfills.

I won’t buy this anymore from your store (hope millions of other people agree) and I ask you to PLEASE consider a change back to the paper wrappings or even better, no wrappers at all. They aren’t necessary.

Thank you for giving this serious consideration.

Jacqueline Linder (Costco member since 1990)