Tips for avoiding plastic around your food and beverages

We’re hearing a lot these days about how plastic leeches chemicals into foods and beverages that may be bad for our health. There are other reasons to avoid consuming plastic. I stopped buying bottled water when I learned how badly it impacts the planet. Even if every bottled water gets recycled, the amount of energy used in that recycling is huge, as is the energy used in manufacturing the bottles and transporting them, and the impact to third world countries where much of the water comes from (who don’t, ironically, have access to clean drinking water themselves) made me feel like a criminal. Additionally, plastic is a petroleum product, and consumption of it helps to drive up oil costs.

I’m not trying to convince you. You make up your own mind. But if you want to consume less plastic, but aren’t sure how you can live without it, this post is for you. Because that’s where I was a year ago, and these are the steps that got me off my plastic dependency. Remember: you don’t have to do it all. Every step you take toward being more green is a help.

Stop buying bottled water. Get a canteen instead. I opted for the Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Water Bottle with the optional steel cap and have been happy with it. You can get a non-leeching plastic “sippy spout” if you prefer a sports top. And no, you don’t taste the steel.

Start using tap water. I admit it; I’m just starting this one myself. The tap water in my old apartment tasted horrible because it was full of chlorine (don’t ask me why). In my new apartment, just a couple of miles away – a much older building, where you’d expect the pipes might be dirty and flavor the water – the tap water tastes great! (ETA: after a couple of days, I started noticing a metallic taste. Looks like I’ll be taking my own advice below and buying a filter.) Bottled water is not safer than tap:

“In fact,” said the report, “there are more standards regulating tap water in Europe and the United States than those applied to the bottled water industry.”

Think about that. Your bottled water isn’t being tested by your government agencies as well or as often as your tap. Which sounds safer? In fact, last year Pepsi announced that Aquafina is tap water.

So you’re convinced, but you have the same problem I had in my old apartment: your tap water tastes horrible for some reason. It could be a plumbing issue that can be repaired. Or it could be that your region has safe but icky naturally occurring sulfur. Whatever the case, you can buy a water filter (like Pur or Brita) for the faucet, or even have a filtration system installed if you own your dwelling. Refrigerators also can come with filtered drinking taps which will improve the flavor tremendously.

Get rid of plastic food storage containers. At home, use glass dishes for leftovers and wax paper where you would normally use a Ziploc. I bought these Anchor Hocking glass storage dishes and I love them: inexpensive, great shapes and sizes, much easier to clean than plastic. And they don’t retain the smells of certain foods the way plastic dishes can. I’m finding wax paper is great for carrying sandwiches and other items to work.

For kids’ lunches, you can use wax paper for sandwiches. You can also make a “baggie” out of it by stapling the edges together and folding the top over with a clip. Items like yogurt (or chips) can be put into small Kleen Kanteens – or check out this line of lightweight stainless steel containers designed by people who didn’t want to send their kids to school with either plastic or glass.

Avoid buying stuff packaged in plastic. This one is nearly impossible. Everything seems to be packaged in plastic these days. When you have a choice, buy products that are packaged in other materials. The less plastic that gets sold, the less will get manufactured.

Related posts: