Not Pretty!
We’ve been troubled by the amount of plastic we use in the kitchen and throughout our apartment. Last year, we reduced the amount of glass we use by saving and reusing old bottles and containers. We use the containers for storing bulk items like beans, rice, flours, and other items we purchase in bulk from Rainbow market. We use the bottles for olive oil, maple syrup, and other liquid items. But reducing plastic seems to be difficult. We feel like crack addicts jonesing for the next fix whenever we can’t find a plastic Ziploc bag, but instead of crack we’re addicted to plastic. For years we have used Saran Wrap and Ziploc bags without giving a second thought to where it all ultimately ends up. We know it goes to the trash dump but where does it go after that?
We heard about the giant mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean a few years ago, but thought that it was someone else’s problem, not ours. We recycle. We compost. We reuse plastic bags from the grocery store. This fall, we paid a visit to Sharon Beals’ studio in the Hunters Point Shipyards where we were blown away by her sadly beautiful photographs of the plastics and other detritus and flotsam she’s gathered on our local beaches. We then took a good hard look at our lives and realized we are part of the problem and the only way to be part of the solution is to reduce our plastic consumption to the point of eliminating plastics from our household.
Even though our blog is about food, it’s also about the choices we make. We’re not going to preach and stand on a soapbox about the evils of plastic, god knows we’re just as guilty as everyone else, but part of this year’s commitment to living a more sustainable life includes an effort to reduce the amount of plastic we use and to change how we dispose of it So, starting today we will be documenting our reduction of plastic as well as what we’re eating. For all those out there reading our blog, please give us any suggestions you may have for plastic-free food storage. We hope that by the end of this year we will be plastic free. We know it’s going to be a hard habit to kick, so wish us luck.
(y)our food choices™ 
I’ll be watching to see what ingenious ideas you come up with. I have only one to share, for what it’s worth… I reuse glass jars to store everything I can, including left-overs. We cook with a lot of seeds and nuts, and I store them in the same size glass bottles (the packaging for my favorite store-bought marinara sauce). The bottles are wide but only about 4 inches tall, so my seed shelf is perfectly organized to boot.
We’re also forced to take our own shopping bags/basket to the grocery store, upon penalty of having to buy another cloth one if we forget (and, yes, we have about 10 cloth ones we’ve accumulated in the last year and a half, but we use them all the time for all kinds of things).
Cheers!
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