Cleaning Up Our Acts | Reducing Plastic Pollution in Our Kitchens
Our sea animals are washing up on the shores with plastics poisoning them from the inside out; their bodies are growing around the plastic can rings in which they get stuck, and hermit crabs are turning our plastic caps into make-shift shell homes. It’s gotten so bad that Henderson Island – a remote and uninhabited land mass in the Pacific Ocean in between Chile and New Zealand, 3000 miles away from any other land – is contending with 38 million pieces of trash (mostly plastic) piling up on its once pristine shores. Scientists have identified plastic particles from all around the globe – China, Europe, Japan, Russia, the US, and South America – proving that even the furthest reaching islands aren’t safe from the plastic wastes of our modern-day world.
While I recognize that eliminating plastics from one’s life entirely is a difficult ask, let’s start with the small stuff. A good way to begin changing a habit is to bring awareness to it – take stock of the amount of plastics that are used once and end up in your recycling or trash bins, take notice of all of the packaging used in daily life that exists merely to be thrown away. Remember, just because you throw something away does not mean it just magically disappears from the face of the planet. Trust me, once you begin to see the massive plastic problem it’s hard to unsee.
In most homes, the kitchen is a heavy plastic polluter and a great place to begin the process of reducing our dependency on single-use plastics – from water bottles, to food packaging, grocery bags, plastic sandwich bags, plastic wrap and more. While there’s no shortage of habit-changing opportunities, below are a few of the ways you can clean up your act and begin the process of reducing your dependency on plastics!
Eco-Bags, an incredible, woman-owned B-Corp, has been focused on providing an alternative to the single-use plastic (and paper) bag problem since 1989. Since the beginning of the company, Eco-Bags has always operated with the highest social responsibility standards – focusing on Fair Labor Laws and ethical production. I’m a huge fan of Eco-Bags for many reasons: from their B-Corp status, to their organic reusable cotton bags, to their string bags that take me back to my childhood, and let’s not forget their bulk and produce bags! This company has thought about every aspect of single-use plastic bags used in a grocery store – even offering solutions to the use of the thin plastic bags on my fruits, veggies and bulk grains. They make it simple: you can mix and match for your own bag needs or select one of their Eco-Shopping options that range from shopping for one to shopping for four. Bringing your own bags to the market is a seemingly insignificant thing; however, considering the billions of people on our planet, and the amount of single-use bags that are thrown “away” daily, this is a huge contributor to our ever growing plastic problem.
As a response to this mounting issue, many states have imposed bans and fees around single-use plastic bags. Why not get into the habit of doing it for yourself and the planet, instead of waiting for your state to ban it for you? I’ll be honest, it took us awhile to get into the habit of packing re-usable bags for a grocery store run. Even if I knew I was leaving the house to go to the market, somehow I would inevitably forget my reusable bags!
***B.Y.O.Bag hack: After you unload your market goods from your bags, hang them on the door handle that you use most frequently to enter and exit your house. Take them down with you the next time you leave the house, so you’re never without a solid stash of them in the car with you.***
We need bees for many reasons – without them them pollinating plants and our entire food system would fall apart; their venom, jelly and honey have been touted for centuries for their numerous health benefits (from helping to alleviate allergies to skin care and anti-bacterial properties)…and now their wax is paving the way for sustainable food storage. Bee’s Wrap, a r