As soon as I found out (recently) that our beloved teabags had a bit of plastic in them I made the switch to loose-leaf tea. I had wondered why the bags weren't breaking down in the compost! Luckily, my elder daughter had just bought some lovely tea diffusers & herbal teas in tins for us. I can now use the spent tea leaves on the garden quite happily.
I would be interested in how others have frozen food without using plastic containers. I think glassware would become very expensive. I have found that doing a bulk cook and freezing meal-size portions, or cooking extra each night and freezing the excess can feel almost as if you have acesss to those takeaway meals; and simply pulling them out to reheat feels like a night off cooking.
Do you have a bulk drygoods store nearby? Sometimes they encourage people to bring their own containers to put the produce into.
Do you already use enviro-friendly shopping bags?
Good on you guys for what you are trying to achieve. :)
That's a point - haven't thought about non-plastic freezing containers! Will have to mull that one over. Cloth, perhaps for non runny goods - ie veg, meat etc.
I have a couple of plastic bags but they're long life ones that we reuse time and time again. When they run out, we'll use cloth bags but I don't want to throw stuff out just because it's plastic. I'll use it until it falls apart and then replace with non. ;)
Yes, reusing what has already been bought is far better than simply chucking it (although I put as much into our recycling bin as possible).
I read a good post recently promoting a reuseable product which (if memory serves) consisted of beeswax-covered cloth, for wrapping food. I would imagine this stuff could be used to wrap certain frozen foods too.
One of our big supermarket chains had a recent survey done asking its customers whether they'd rather be charged for their shopping bags (and the money going to charity), as part of an idea to reduce the use of the plastic bags; but then looking around the shop at the HUGE amount of plastic wrapping used on products, not to mention the screeds of paper wasted on printing long till receipts (most of which taken up with advertising!) it all feels so pointless unless changes are implemented across the board. A bit like trying to walk against a very strong wind, but I know a small step forward is better than none at all. :)