Glassing Over Green Guilt

Sometimes I look around the apartment and think: “am I really trying hard enough here?” Are there other ways I can green up my living space? I think maybe I am looking at things the wrong way. I mean trying to be green is a great way to increase your individual inventiveness and creativity. And of course lower and offset your carbon footprint. But sometimes, rather than thinking green, I try to think economically and practically and somehow that translates to green.

A twofer if you will.

So today it was the kitchen. Specifically the plastic storage containers. We buy them for the same reason everyone else buys them. It appears a simple, economically way of saving, storing and transporting foods. But when it comes down to it, isn’t it just another way to increase our carbon impact on the planet?

Plastic containers are like any other plastic product: landfill layabouts that have no intention of moving on. Sure, we use them for a while but then the lid disappears, the tub gets stained with spaghetti sauce and the corner gets melted in the dishwasher and then they find a new home in the back of the cupboard. Because we hate to put plastic in the garbage, we create our own miniature landfills in the back of the kitchen cupboard.

What to do what to do.

Well, until Wyoming becomes a Mecca of whole foods, local produce and community gardens, I still have to shop at the grocery store. Its hard to find carbon neutral products.So smart choices can save me money. If I buy glass containers over plastic containers and wax paper bags instead of plastic sandwich bags. I can on one hand make my own durable containers than can be recycled in the future and bags that can biodegrade in just over a week on the other. This way I avoid both the green guilt and the landfill.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between buying food in plastic containers and buying it in glass containers. So I just collect discarded glass and their metal lids in a small cardboard box under the sink and then about once a month, give them a good scrub in hot water, take of the label and put on my own. They are great for dry food storage and, if you can get over the concept of swapping a box shape for a jar, perfect for holding lunch foods.

And in my case, the growing stack of empty baby food jars are great for storing dressings, pickles and salsa, even salt and pepper.You can do a lot with an empty glass jar.

And getting more than one use out of any time of packaging means one less product that has to be produced, saving energy and reducing carbon. Well, there’s one problem solved. When the storage jar has outlived its usefulness, I can pop in the recycling so it can begin its new life as a beer bottle.

Of course, plastic storage containers are just one of the many bad habits the modern kitchen contains. And as I make my way through the pile of ungreen aspects of my domestic arrangements, I’ll be sure to share them with you.