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Today's post is by web editor Colleen Tully.
I hate being dependent on plastic, but especially those disposable plastic wraps and baggies designed for food storage and food waste. Every time I throw away some plastic wrap or a grocery bag I feel terrible. So this month I chose to exorcise the following demons from my life forever: plastic wrap, baggies, grocery bags, and garbage bags.My husband and I are apartment-dwellers. He tends to be wrap-happy with food, having grown up in the country, where mice or insects would otherwise raid their pantry. I copied his habits and developed an addiction to Ziploc. I expected this experiment to be grossly difficult for us both, but I couldn't have been more wrong! Here's what we did:
Leftover dinners
Out came Mason jars, Corningware casserole dishes with lids and glass IKEA refrigerator-type boxes I had been using to store tea bags. Leftovers live happily in these covered containers I already had on hand – no more lazy plastic wrap slapped onto a bowl.
No more grocery bags
Given the growing movement to bring your own bag, the hardest part here was just remembering to actually bring the bags to the store. We have about 10 tote bags that live near the front doorknob, and two live in the car just in case. Now it feels like I've forgotten my wallet if I don't have a bag with me when I leave the door. It's just a good habit that forms eventually.
Refrigerator and freezer foods
Things like half an onion, cut-up lemon, cheese, tofu, meat to freeze in smaller portions – these lived in my Ziploc heaven. I used to be good about reusing my Ziploc bags, but then somewhere along the line I grew lazy. The shame.
What now houses my cut-up, refrigerated items is trusty old waxed paper I found – like the glass containers – in the back of my cupboard. When I can't make the paper stay folded over I cheat with an elastic band, but my skills are improving. I re-use all this paper too. I keep waxed paper scraps in a heart-shaped tin box in the kitchen, "Because I LOVE the environment!" I jokingly told my husband, but the joke worked. We both always know where the scraps are to wrap things. Aluminum foil scraps from freezer items also live in my heart-shaped box. Because we re-use these scraps all the time, the box is never overflowing – unlike the "grocery bag mountain" that used to live under my sink!
Kitchen garbage
I had ambitious plans to use paper bags for the kitchen garbage, but knew it would end in disaster once day. Then I discovered Canadian-made Bag-To-Nature compostable garbage bags by Indaco Manufacturing Ltd. Miraculous! They look and perform just like plastic, but Bag-To-Nature is made from a blend of organic biopolymers which degrade completely, leaving no residues, and are made from renewable resources – primarily corn. They're even designed to be thrown into your composter and are available all across Canada.
Bag-to-Nature bags are a little pricier than most garbage bags – about $5 for 20 bags – but I'm no longer using Ziploc, plastic wrap or even that much aluminum foil or waxed paper. With these more expensive garbage bags my costs are still down, and they make me feel better about myself.
Plus it's good to have expensive garbage bags – you think twice before throwing something out!
It was so stupidly easy and painless to train myself and my husband to obliterate baggies, plastic wrap, grocery and garbage bags from our lives that I'm embarrassed I didn't do it sooner. Anyone can accomplish this feat with little to no financial investment and hardly any thinking at all. Go for it!
How do you feel about plastic in your kitchen, and what are you doing about it? What are some of the eco-friendly – and thrifty – tricks you use for food storage?Today's code word: plastic
Read more:
• Eco-friendly online shopping
• Are plastic drinking bottles bad for your health?
• Go green: Shopping at the Yellowknife dump
