By Collin Dunn
Corvallis, OR, USA | Thu Jan 15 07:00:00 GMT 2009
Plastic is one of those materials that seems to have infiltrated most parts of our lives. While it can be pretty unavoidable in places, you don't have to settle for using plastic everywhere, especially in the kitchen, where it's use not only chokes our landfills, but can make us sick. Here are five easy actions to take to ban the bag (and the rest of the plastic junk) in your kitchen.
How to Go Green: In the Kitchen
Detox Your Home: In the Kitchen Part 1 and Part 2
Pack Your Lunch Sustainably
Bring Your Own: Workplace Essentials
How to Eat a Waste-Free Lunch
Here's an oldie but goodie: When you head out and about—heading to the grocery store, farmers' market, or jaunt about town—bring your own bag with you. Plastic bags take hundreds of years to break down in landfills (and, hey, paper isn't a picnic, either) and are pretty much the scourge of the kitchen. It's a simple choice, but it might be the single-biggest step you can take toward a plastic-free kitchen. While you're at it, teach kids to bring their own bag, too.
Image Courtesy of Martin Poole/Getty.
Bottled waterM is a planetary bane; we spend about $100 billion each year on a beverage that comes straight out of the tap in every home in America. Our collective bottled water habit uses 1.5 million barrels of oil each year. Get a reusable stainless-steel or aluminum bottle, from a company like Sigg or Klean Kanteen, and take it with you when you go somewhere.
Image Courtesy of Getty Images.
A staple in many kitchens, many food wraps are made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which contains endocrine-disrupting plasticizers—among a multitude of other baddies—to help make it more flexible. If it's in the plastic wrap, it can migrate into your food (and then in to you!) and is really best avoided. Instead of plastic wrap, we recommend storing food in reusable glass or ceramic containers—more on that below—and slick alternatives to plastic wrap like Abeego.
Image Courtesy of Steve Taylor/Getty.
ust as with cling wrap, containers you store your food in can leach eco-baddies into your food (especially when you pop them in the microwave). In this age of bisphenol A, phthalates and other tongue-twisting plastic chemicals, we think it best to stop rolling the dice with the risks that come with plastics, and going for glass or ceramic. They'll last forever—plastic oxidizes and degrades over time, essentially creating a disposable kitchen product—if you can keep from dropping it, and you'll never have to sweat the oven-to-fridge-to-microwave transition again.
Image Courtesy of Dougal Waters/Getty.
Just because you ran short of time to make your own takeout food doesn't mean you have to abide a deluge of plastic bags and takeout containers. A solid set of nonreactive stainless steel is a great reusable, zero-waste option for takeout food; if you're heading out for Asian or other chopstickable fair, don't forget to bring your own chopsticks.
Image Courtesy of FEV Create Inc..
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