My Alternatives to Plastic.

I have decided to change some things in my life regarding my use of plastic. I don’t want to use plastic around food or store food in plastic anymore if not for the fact that toxins “could” be leaking into our food from these plastics, I think the over consumerism, and waste of all the plastic containers for food is abhorrent. I am 35 and I am just now getting the message. I have a lot to make up for, besides being a good steward of what we have been given. We should take care of this place, because it is our home right now. Look how wasteful our society is, just because they can be. I decided it was important enough to take action for my family. It is my responsibility to protect them from harm and insure their safetly.

1. I will NOT use plastic bags from now on. Not only are plastic bags wasteful, but they are terrible for the environment. To combat this problem, I have a nice collection of canvas and cloth bags to take with me to any store. China has banned them in most areas because of all the problems they are having with their environment. The plastic bags are becoming a type of polution.



I think America could take a lesson from other countries in this issue. Europe charges for each plastic bag, which is a nice way to deter people from using them. Also, I get $0.5 for each cloth bag I use at my grocery store. It is a nice incentive for me. Maybe they should start a tax for plastic bags, and use the money collected to help clean up the plastic bag problem in our country and also deter people from using plastic bags. If you woud like to also begin to limit your use of plastic bags, please check out this site about reusable bags: reusablebags.com

2. I will ONLY store my food in glass jars. Yes, I took all my old Tupperware and put them in a large bag for storage in my garage until all these types of plastic can be recyclable, especially #5, but also #3, #4, #6 and #7. I already recycle #1 and #2 types of plastic, like milk jugs, and water bottles. Plastic items are marked with a “recycling identification code.” If you ever wondered what the numbers stood for here is a list:

1—polyethyelene terephthalate (PETE)
2—high-density polyethylene (HDPE)
3—vinyl, polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
4—low-density polyethylene (LDPE)
5—polypropylene (PP)
6—polystyrene (PS)
7—other (includes polycarbonate, acrylic, polylactic acid, fiberglass)


The least harmful plastic for food storage are 1, 2, 4 and 5. Avoid numbers 3, 6 and 7. These should never be used for food storage because some of them could have BPA leaching plastics in them. The next thing I did was go to my Bashas store and Walmart and found some really nice Ball Canning Jars and Glass containers like the ones you see blow.



The price couldn’t have been less expensive then if I had bought them online in bulk. I got a case of 1/2 gallon size jars for all my drinks like milk, orange juice and they are great for brewing my favorite beverage, iced tea. I got a case of 6 oz. ball jars for “left over food”. They work great and you can safely warm up your food in them in the microwave without worry. You can just put them in your dish washer with the lids to wash. I can tote them to work in a bag and everything takes up much less room. My fridge looks pristine. Why didn’t I do this sooner? It is so much nicer and I didn’t ever realize it would be. I thought it would be expensive and would be a hard thing to change over to, but it was inexpensive and easy. The only thing you have to remember is to put labels on the jars so you know what is in them, otherwise you are doing smell and taste tests to figure out what is in each jar. I just use sticky notes for labes. It is surprisingly easy.

3. I will make an effort to buy my food in glass containers and re-use them or recycle them. I already buy my peanut butter in glass jars, as well as pickles. In recent shopping I found canned peaches in jars, and apple sauce. Why buy it in plastic when it comes in jars and is just as expensive? Buying butter in sticks wrapped in paper rather then plastic tubs is a good idea as well.

4. I will work on purchasing some stainless steel water jugs, mugs and glass cansisters to use instead of plastic containers. Glass canisters can be used to store some of my dry goods, like flour, sugar, rice and coffee. Right now those items are in plastic Tupperware containers. I also want to get a large stainless steel water dispenser to put all my drinking water in or one of these glass jars like the one at this store: Homecanning.com . They are hard to find and a little pricey, but I hope to find one soon. In the weeks to come I am sure I will find more ways to enhance this project.

Little Things To Make A Difference.

People often feel that what they do doesn't really matter, but it does. Each person does matter and what they do effects everyone around them. I think more and more people are realizing this, and things are changing for the better. Here are some things I do to make a difference for the environment: I don’t do anything radical, expensive or complicated and they end up saving me money:

Drink Tap Water: Having drinking water delivered to you isn't really cost effective, causes polution by having to use gas to deliver the water to the door. I don't like the idea of having water sitting around in plastic bottles and everyone knows how wasteful and expensive botteled water is. Osmosis is better because you don’t have to have a driver deliver water to you and the water is filtered right at your home, however we do not have one of these systems. We drink tap water filtered in a Brita Water Pitcher. I love this because the water is always cold and ready to drink and tastes great and this really saves us money. When my family takes water with us we use only stainless steel water bottles that last forever and are very easy to clean.

Use Real Silverware: I invested $10 on an inexpensive set of stainless steel silverware and tray for my office. They supply everyone with plastic ware in our kitchen, but I feel it is wasteful to use so much that will just be thrown away or break. I put the tray in our kitchen for everyone to use. I was somewhat surprised that some people complained that they would have to wash the silverware off, so therefore they wouldn't even consider using it? Wow, I thought that was incredibly lazy and a poor excuse to keep being wasteful. In fact, no one even said thank you, but when I see employees using the silverware, I am secretly happy, because I know that is one less plastic fork in the garbage.

Use real dishes: Our office also supplies the kitchen with paper plates and bowls. Again, this is very wasteful, so I brought in my own set of dishes that I wasn't using for just my co-worker's to use. There are 6 of us in this office. 3 use the dishes and 3 continue to use the paper dishes because they "don't want to wash any dishes." I was again shocked at the lazyness of this, but at least there are 3 of us who don't use the paper plates anymore.

Use real coffee mugs: The next thing I thought of was all the styrofome cups in our office. Why do people drink their coffe in those when they could just as easily use a mug from home? They also have plenty of mugs in the cubbords of the kitchen, so why not use one of those? I always use my coffe mug or stainless steel coffee cup for beverages at work.