In a well-furnished kitchen there are not only crystal goblets and silver platters, but waste cans and compost buckets – some containers used to serve fine meals, others to take out the garbage 2 Tim 2 :20 (The Message) During this first week of Lent we will have a look at what we are using that is plastic – in our kitchens, bathrooms and at Church. Then we can work out the best way to reduce, refuse or re-use! Veggies and fruit It can be quite depressing trying to buy food as everything is covered in plastic – from chopped mushrooms to meat. What can you do? For vegetables see if you can find a place to buy from a local vendor, not only does this help them feed their family , but it will reduce the plastic immensely. Try to cook from scratch – buy a whole butternut rather than chopped butternut in plastic. When you go to the supermarket, you can take some paper bags from the bread department to put your veggies in before weighing (or bring your own re-usable small bags) to avoid using the thin plastic ones. A key issues with veggies is to make sure you don’t buy too much or you end up throwing out veggies and plastic! Cooking and cutting We all use a lot of plastic kitchen appliances. For example cutting board, mixing bowls, non-stick (Teflon-coated) pans, spatulas, blender or food processor. Plastic appliances can release high levels of micro and nanoplastics, especially if we’re heating with, chopping on or blending in them. Chopping on plastic cutting boards can release millions of microplastics each year. Other recent research has counted the microplastics released from using plastic mixing bowls, blenders and non-stick pans. It would be good to change your chopping board as soon as possible to wooden ones as you really don’t want micro-plastics in your food. But the other items you can plan to replace once they wear out with glass, metal or wood. Storing: Plastic wrap has easily one of the greatest impacts on the environment: we only ever use it once and it can take close to 1,000 years to decompose in landfills. And plastic packaging – think cling wrap, sandwich bags and sweet wrappers – makes up almost half of the plastic waste that ends up in the ocean. It’s so convenient that it can be difficult to imagine any good alternatives. The best way to store food is in a glass closed container in the fridge (think old coffee jar) , or you can put a plate on top of your salad bowl rather than cling wrap. There are also other more expensive alternatives to consider buying like beeswax or elasticated cloth covers. It is very wise to stop heating food in plastic containers such as carry outs . When exposed to heat, in the microwave and dishwasher – some types of plastic such as polyethylene and polypropylene can break down, leaching chemicals into food and drink. For your dry goods storage we can all go with “re-use” as glass jars do really well for your pasta, rice or other dried goods. There are some ‘zero plastic” stores around where you might be able to buy dry goods without plastic – they do tend to be pretty expensive but things like herbs and spices can work out very cheap! Cleaning: Most cleaning materials are in plastic bottles. You could try to source in bulk to reduce the plastic use. There are a few brands of dish soap that come in bars now. Try to avoid plastic sponges – as they leach microplastics into your washing up water – and look for natural sponges. Instead of microfibre cloths switch to cotton swabs. Auditing your kitchen: Make a list of switches you can make immediately – and items that you might replace with non-plastic once they wear out or break. References
