Hands down my personal favorite action: Switch to cloth napkins regularly.

But I have a confession: For me, this wasn’t a Switch. I grew up with cloth napkins. We did not use anything else! I grew up with a mother in pearls and tea at 4pm, and you can bet I grew up with cloth napkins. Just don’t ask me how they were washed, in what or on what setting. This was not a very green household, and lots of funky stuff went down the drain there….

Anyhow.

Fast forward to the 21st century: I think this Action is the EASIEST 20 POINTS on Practically Green! Our guest blogger Paige Rodgers wants to make it even easier for you. Paige is the Founder of Fabkins, and here’s her story:

I’m a mom of 2 girls, ages 6 and 9, and like many of us, I’m trying to balance work, family, friends, and me time. I’ve always worked as a parent. A few years in I got to a point where I wanted more control over my schedule and work, so I left the corporate world in 2007 to start something on my own. At the time, I had no idea what that would be, but a friend, Joyce, and I would brainstorm and research different ideas. A common theme was always eco-friendly and kid-oriented. An Inconvenient Truth had come out, and mom’s groups in our progressive town were all a-buzz with ways to live a greener life.

One day, Joyce called me. She’d been shopping for waste-free lunch components after her son’s preschool asked that parents pack lunches with all reusables. She’d found the containers, water bottles, and cutlery, but couldn’t find a napkin that wasn’t too big or too starchy. “Where are the cool kid napkins?” her son asked. As we talked about this, we pondered whether other families were challenged to find a small, cute, kid napkin for the lunchbox that could also be used for meals at home, or snack time out and about.

We decided to give it a try and a few months later, in August 2007, we launched Fabkins. Since then, the concept of packing waste-free has become more common as families realize the importance of reducing the waste from kids’ lunches. It adds up. The EPA reported that the average school-age child sends 67 pounds of waste to landfills each year. Multiply that by the thousands of school children out there and the impact is massive!

What I love about Fabkins is that we hear from parents all the time that we’ve made going waste-free fun and easy. We’re educating kids about the importance of doing little things – like replacing a paper napkin with a cloth one – for big impact. I’ve incorporated this idea into how I teach my kids about being environmentally responsible in our everyday lives. We turn off the sink when brushing our teeth, try to walk, bike or carpool as much as possible, compost and recycle, take reusable bags to the store, make or reuse wrapping paper, and turn off lights when we leave a room. We celebrate Earth Day every year by doing a park clean up with friends and talk about how we’re all in charge of cleaning up our Earth. They understand that they can do their part and play a role.

Now that Earth Day is upon us, we’ll again be cleaning up, and with Fabkins we’re going to give back. Fabkins has partnered with a group of amazing eco-friendly brands – Green Toys, Luna, Cleanwell, and Plum Organics – to offer a “Life’s a Picnic” kit that will be sold on Diapers.com from April 1 – end of May. Each kit is specially priced at a 25% discount and all profits from the sale of the kits will be donated to the non-profit Healthy Child Healthy World.

Focusing on the little things and giving back. As a mom, these are two ways that I can easily explain to show my kids: Actions count. But it’s hardly a perfect system. They’ll call me out for the actions I don’t take – I still drive an SUV, I love a long hot shower on a cold winter day, and sometimes I forget to bring bags to the grocery store. But maybe that’s the lesson in and of itself – we have to do the best we can, even if it’s not perfect.

*                    *                    *                    *

Go Paige!

Please find Fabkins on Facebook and on Twitter @GreenMyLunchbox. AND, please inspect the Life is a Picnic pack (photo)! Want it?! (Why wouldn’t you!) It’s one of the amazing prizes to be offered at our Practically Green Twitter party Thursday night! (9 to 10 pm EST, be there @practicallygrn!!)  

Fabkins has partnered with Green Toys, LUNA, Plum Organics, CleanWell to offer “Life is a Picnic” Eco-friendly Earth Day kit. Sold only on Diapers.com, all proceeds going to non-profit Healthy Child Healthy World.