Reducing Plastic Use

Plastic plastic everywhere. If you are careful about not using single use plastic, and you've had the misfortune of spending a day or two in a hospital, you will have been horrified by how much plastic is wasted there. Every pill comes wrapped in plastic, which is opened by a disposable pair of plastic scissors that was also wrapped in plastic. The “food” (if you can call it that) arrives on plastic disposable plates with plastic utensils in plastic wrappers and all this is on a Styrofoam tray. Guests have to wrap themselves in plastic before visiting a patient. On the “outside” (to use verbiage that is used to describe which side of a prison wall you are on) there is plastic in our cars, plastic in our gardens, plastic in our pet supplies, plastic in our clothes, our furniture, our water, our technology and our food. It sometimes feels like such a huge problem, why should we bother saying “no straw please.”?

Many of us think “The plastics for our foods are recyclable so it’s OK – I am making a difference by putting this water bottle in the recycling bin”. But we all know by now that little of this actually gets reused even though we are required by law to dispose of it “properly.” Slowly but surely we are being made lawbreakers if we dare to use a plastic shopping bag or a straw, but never mind the plastic garbage bags, the plastic the kitchen appliances are made of, the plastic paints on our walls, the plastic in our furniture, our kayaks, our food processors, juicers, immersion blenders, power cords and and and...

Plastic is everywhere. And that is not right.

For me the biggest wake-up call was looking in my refrigerator and noticing how much plastic was in there. This set off a crusade on my part to at least reduce that, even the supposedly recyclable bits.

Here are some very simple changes I made that greatly reduced the plastic in my fridge:

• I buy raw milk in glass jars that the suppliers recycle themselves.
• I make yogurt, kefir, and cheese from this milk because I noticed that most of the plastic in my fridge contained dairy products.
• I of course take shopping bags whenever I go shopping and have reusable bags tucked inside each of those for loose fruits or products sold in bulk.
• No more take-out food for this family, unless it’s from a store that packages it in cardboard or paper. Unfortunately I live in NYS, the state that makes everyone a lawbreaker for their own good (I gotta get outta here), and it is against the law for a store to package the food you buy in a container that you provide.
• Out with the plastic wrap, in with the beeswax coverings and waxed paper.
• Out with prepared foods, which are a huge source of non-recyclable plastic, from little plastic windows to see what’s inside to polypropylene bags encasing the whole product. In with a whole lot more cooking and dishes.

Here are the food products I haven’t managed to eliminate plastic use for:

• Meats. I buy all of these from the farmers, and it’s all shrink wrapped and frozen. This is my biggest use of single use plastic. Even if we were to raise and butcher our own large animals, much of it would get frozen in plastic. If anyone knows how to avoid this, please post about it! I’ll be raising chickens for consumption one of these days, and eggs and poultry can be eaten without encasing them in plastic first. Rabbits too. Hunting for small game and fishing are also options, and I have @myjob for inspiration to fish. If you haven’t checked her out, please do!
• Berries – these always come in those horrible plastic containers. I buy as much as I can from farmer’s markets in paper bags or cardboard, but those blueberries. We need those blueberries.
At least those containers can sometimes be reused, such as for germinating seedlings.
• Coconut products, such as sugar, aminos, and dried coconut.
• Plastic lids on glass bottles such as for vinegars, oils and spices.