Food Storage

Plastics and food seem inseparable today - we buy ingredients in plastic clamshells or on shrink-wrapped trays; we bag our sandwiches and snacks in ziplock bags; and then we seal up the leftovers with clingwraps, Tupperware, or more plastic bags.

But the price of freshness is higher than we'd like to think. First, every time your food and its plastic protector touch each other, a little of the petrochemical compounds find their way into your food, and into your body.

Second, plastic products trash the environment, filling up landfills at best and winding up on our streets and in our waterways at worst. Made of materials that soil and water cannot break down into nutrients (bio-degrading, or composting), these materials merely break down into smaller parts, contaminating soil and water and killing wildlife.

You can change your habits and supplies one step at a time, following these tips:

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

• Buy less packaging -
  
• do you really need a produce bag, a clamshell, another container?
  
• Can you find the item in bulk?
• Bring groceries home in a re-usable shopping bag
• Re-use durable containers instead of buying 'tupperware'
• Use alternatives to petro-plastics
  
• a pyrex baking dish with a rubberized lid will heat and store with no extra containers to wash
• wrap sandwiches in waxed paper (it's compostable!)
• Take lunch in an old-fashioned stainless steel lunchbox
  
• Instead of cling wrap, try waxed paper and a rubber band
• Where you really need plastics, try some of the new compostable plastic.