Zero wasting is hard, and I often find myself reverting back to my old habits when I don't mean to. When I am starving and stop at a fast food place, it is only when they hand me my drink that I see the plastic cover, the plastic straw, and my heart drops because I had forgotten YET AGAIN! -_- One day I'll get this all right!
Which leads me into a short-term failure, long term success story for you all. The plastic sandwich bags and snack bags are a huge waste in our house. Every day we get our kid's lunches ready in plastic bags. plastic for sandwiches, for bell peppers, for tortilla chips even. Then at the end of the day we throw the bags away and begin again with new ones. I can't think about how much plastic and excess money we've thrown out with that useless habit. It was time to change for something sustainable!
After doing some research, I found a wonderful way to make reusable snack and sandwich bags. The fabric is called "PUL fabric." It is fabric on one side and waterproof plastic on the other side of the fabric. The plastic side keeps leaks from coming out into the lunch box, which was what I needed. It holds up and feels great as the fabric for reusable diapers. They are easily washable, they do not fray on the ends either, so there is no need to finish the edges. I decided to buy some for myself to make reusable snack and sandwich bags!
This is the youtube tutorial that I used to make my bags. It's very simple to make them, and is a wonderful tutorial for any fabric types you use:
PUL fabric is extremely expensive, but thankfully I found someone on Etsy who was selling her PUL scraps from the diapers she made. It was PERFECT for my kids, because I was looking for something that had gender neutral patterns that both my son and daughters would like. I made big sandwich bags, and small snack bags, and some tiny bags for raisins that were leftover scraps. I wanted to use as much as I could.
They work so beautifully, and am happy to say that they have held up in the wash and with the kids use. I simply turn them inside out when I throw them into my wash bin in the kitchen. It is where I also throw in the used towel rags, which have been a major success in my house! Those towels hold a ton more liquids than their paper towel rivals! Also the towel side scrubs off sticky food bits on my table much faster than any paper, and the flannel has been soft for wiping off my baby's face. I am never going back, these are the best thing I've made.
So what is the failure part of making these bags? Looks like a great option, doesn't it? Well I really did try to choose the best options for us, but the sad thing is PUL fabric is not a completely zero waste option. This is why...
I wanted to make a "sad list." These are things that as a Connectican resident, I am unable to purchase a zero-waste alternative for it.
First and most importantly, are Berries. :'(
Clementines: I WISH they had loose clementines sold to me! But they only sell them either in a wooden box with plastic over it, or in a plastic mesh bag. My children love these, and will eat them all winter long in their lunches. I could try oranges, but because my kids are still small and don't know how to peel a hefty orange, the clementines have to do. For a little while Whole Foods sold "Tangelos," which are a clementine and an orange mixed, and they were AMAZING! They peeled easily and had the sweetness of a clementine but BIGGER! But they ran out of them and haven't carried them recently.
Long Pasta: Why do all the pasta boxes have to have a window of plastic with them? I am able to get bulk smaller pasta with a scoop at Whole Foods, but spaghetti and Lasagna don't have a plastic windowless version. right now I am trying to abstain from buying these, though my kids love spaghetti and meatballs. For now it'll have to be rotini or elbows and meatballs instead. I'm waiting for the natives to start yelling.
Ketchup and Mayonaise: I haven't seen these in glass containers, and so I have two options. I can learn how to make them or buy them in plastic. Because I've been short on time I opted to buy them in their plastic bottles.
Brown Sugar** and powdered sugar: I wish I could find these sugars in a paper bag instead of a plastic one, but it probably is in plastic to not let it clump over time with air is my guess. We can't go without our chocolate chip cookies!
**UPDATE! I figured out brown sugar is basically granulated sugar with molasses! I will have to try this out!
Cereal: My children will not give up their cereal for anything. They must have their honey nut cheerios and mini wheats, or all hell breaks loose at breakfast time. Oatmeal and eggs are not good enough for them apparently. :/. Maybe when they are a little older they can see the benefit and transition.
Yogurt and Mozzarella: This has the same problem as ketchup and Mayo, where I could make them if I wanted to, but I haven't had time to do so. Perhaps in a future blog post I will attempt to make them and see what happens.
Diapers and Wipes: I know I had made a great post about reusable wipes, and maybe it's worked well for some people, but so far I have found that it has not worked well for me. Every time I try it I cringe. I don't know what it is, but I think it's the idea of swiping poop off with a pretty cloth that makes me queasy. zero wasting with diapers means I have to handle working with poop, and I've just been having a hard time with this one. As much as I love the environment, this has to be the biggest landfill waster that I will need to invest in for the time being.
Milk: This was the saddest of them all, and I gave it my best efforts in my area. There is a glass container called "Trickling Springs Organic Milk," where for a whopping $6 I can get a half gallon of their milk. This doesn't include the $2 glass bottle deposit, which can be refunded to me after I return the bottle to the store. Since my family goes through 2 gallons of milk a week, I couldn't seem to make 2 gallons for $24 a week work for us. For $6 for a whole gallon, I could get wonderful, fresh, whole milk that is minimally pasteurized, located close to my home. The farm is called New Pond Farm, and is one of the last working dairy farms in Fairfield County. I even get to see where the cows graze, and there are classes that show how they milk their cows! But they sell their milk in plastic gallon containers.
I tried to put my thinking cap on, and went to the small farm and asked if I could simply bring my glass milk jugs to be filled. They had to decline for fear that if my glass is not properly cleaned and I get sick, the repercussions goes back to the farm. They could be held liable, and that is not a risk they could take. They told me their story about how they even tried to sell their milk in Glass, but because only a third of the people actually returned the containers, it wasn't financially profitable for them. Because I love and support this small dairy farm, I've decided that buying local takes precedence over zero wasting. My goal is not to go broke trying to save the environment, but save money and the environment at the same time. And for a place that treats their cows like Queens of the rolling hill pasture in Connecticut, that is something I wish to support.
You know what else I wish to support one day? Milk vending machines! They are all over Europe. You bring you jar, or bottle, pay a certain amount per liter, then hold out your bottle to let the raw milk dispense into your jar! Oh how I wish that could happen here! It hasn't for safety reasons, which basically means the USA doesn't want to dispense raw milk because they think it is hazardous. Well ok, but what about dispensing pasteurized milk? That's a million dollar question, perhaps you know!
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