Easy Ways to Reduce Your Plastic Footprint #3: Food Containers
We’ve all got to eat but buying lunches out every day can soon take its toll on your wallet as well as the environment. More than 170 million tonnes of waste is produced by the UK alone every year and much of this is from food packaging. Some supermarkets have taken steps to improve the situation, for example, last year Waitrose announced that they would make all their own-label packaging widely recyclable, reusable or compostable at home by 2025. Unfortunately, the popularity of the packaged sandwich shows no sign of slowing down, with sales growing by £33m year on year according to Kantar Worldpanel.
With the average price of a packaged sandwich coming in at a reasonable-sounding £2, the cost soon adds up if you buy one every weekday, equating to around £40 per month on sandwiches alone before you add any additional snacks and drinks. In fact, most Brits are reported to spend as more than £5 a day on lunch, which adds up to a whopping £1,200 a year. Thatcould be an entire month’s salary spent just on lunch every year! The average price of a loaf of bread is £1.07, providing enough slices to last all week, so it’s clear that you can save a lot of money, and packaging, by making your own at home.
When it comes to transporting your homemade goods, nothing beats a stainless steel lunchbox. Tupperware or reusable plastic boxes will do the job but after a while they will start to stain and crack and will eventually have to be thrown away. Even if you are able to recycle them, plastic can only be recycled six times whereas glass or metal can be recycled indefinitely.
Our A Slice of Green stainless steel food containers are made from high-quality, food grade 202 stainless steel that’s also free from BPA, phthalates and lead. Stainless steel is a great carrier of food products as it will not retain or impart any flavours.
The range of food containers by black+blum has 'revolutionised the lunch box'. The international design winners have included a 3-in-1 container in their Box Appetit collection so you can bake a dish in the oven, put it in the freezer and take it out with you without changing the container. Leakproof and with a fork too! Lunchbox envy.
Glass jars are another great alternative, especially if you are thinking outside the box with your lunch plans. Pinterest is home to hundreds of recipes for mason jar salads, overnight oats or even homemade ‘pot noodles’.
If you don’t like the idea of carrying around a box or jar full of lunch every day then try Abeego reusable beeswax food wraps. An eco-friendly alternative to Clingfilm made from cotton, hemp, beeswax, organic oils and tree resin, Abeego wraps can be folded up nice and small when you’ve finished eating and stored in your bag or pocket to take home and be used again the next day. Wash them in cool water and washing up liquid and off you go again.
