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Following in the vein of “how can I get into the habit of taking packed lunches?”, I thought it would be useful to gather together your thoughts and tips on getting into the habit of using reusable shopping bags. Because cutting down on plastic carriers is going save the world you know. ;)
So what do you do to make sure you always have cloth bags, reusable plastic ones or just old carriers on hand when you need them? We’re very good at taking reusable bags with us when we’re consciously heading to the supermarket on a shopping trip but don’t always have them on hand if we’re out doing something else and pop into a shop randomly. (I still say no to bags though if I can, even if it means the bus driver looks at me funny when I get on balancing a pie and bread roll on top of 18 better-than-half-price recycled toilet rolls – as happened on Tuesday night.)
I know some cloth/nylon bags are designed to fold up tightly – either with poppers or a bag to keep them neat – so they can easily be carried around in a handbag without much bother. (And basic plastic bags can be folded into triangles for neat storage and transportation).
Other people always keep a stash of carriers in their car for when they need them.
But what about ideas for those of us who neither carry handbags or drive cars? What do you do?
Categories: household, reduce this
Posted by louisa
on 13 January 2011
We’ve had an email from Siddharth:
How do I recycle plastic bird food bags? The brown paper ones I can just throw into the paper bin, but the recycling facility doesn’t accept the woven plastic ones.
I suspect there will be some overlap between these bags and the plastic sacks we get when bulk buying rice.
Suggestions over on the rice sack page include making them into shopping bags, aprons or using them as a groundsheet/roof-liner for kids’ playhouses.
Cut into strips, they could also be used as ties around the garden – we always have stuff out there that needs tying to other stuff ;)
Any bird seed bag specific suggestions?
Categories: garden, items, packaging
Posted by louisa
on 9 February 2009
We’ve had an email from unsteadyocean:
I was just wondering if anyone has suggestions for reusing the cloth bags that bulk rice comes in? I’ve seen suggestions for making them into tote bags but I would love to get more ideas.
Around here, they tend to be plastic-coated cloth or just woven plastic – but either way, ripe for re-using.
So any suggestions?
(Photo by kirsche222)
Categories: items, kitchen, packaging
Posted by louisa
on 5 September 2007
The other week when I asked how people make their home baked goods last longer, Dani suggested using little packets of silica gel crystals to a biscuit jar to draw the moisture away from the munchables. (I’ve heard rice can be used in the same way.)
Dani’s comment got me thinking about other ways that those little sachets of silica gel could be reused. Dani gets hers from bottles of vitamins but they are often included with other things too – I’ve had them in shoes or leather bags/purses, or thrown in with deliveries of dried food items.
Care should be taken when reusing these pouches – because silica gel crystals can cause irritation to the repository and digestive tracts – but their moisture absorbing qualities are very useful: they can absorb up to 40% of its own weight in water vapour.
Looking around the web, people suggest using them to protect sensitive items from getting damp: important papers, seeds, camera/electronic equipment – even jewellery (the moisture adds to tarnish on silver). You can also use silica gel crystals to as cat litter – but I imagine you’d need a helluva lot of these little sachets to fill a tray.
What else can you do with them?
Categories: household, items, packaging
Posted by louisa
on 1 October 2010
We’ve always tried to minimise the amount of waste our cats produce by buying in bulk where possible, choose recyclable packaging over plastic bags and they mostly eat biscuits, which have less water content so aren’t as heavy/bulky to ship.
Except now one of them is sick – very sick – and is having trouble digesting regular cat food. I’ve become incredibly familiar with cat food ingredients (and also the consistency of cat poop) over the last few months and the better quality stuff (stuff that is made up of at least 50 or 60% the meat/fish it claims to be – most cat food is around 4%) seems to come in small quantities in plastic pouches, or tiny, teeny cans. Enter loads of extra waste.
I try to feed her frozen fish/mince at least once a day – since that has a considerably lower packaging cost – but worry that she’ll miss out on essential vitamins/minerals if I just feed her those all the time. I’m happy to make her food from scratch but don’t have time to do it at every meal time since she’s eating lots of small meals throughout the day. I’ve tried making a chicken & rice mash before but it didn’t really interest her.
Unfortunately for us, this is a short scale problem with this cat (*sniff*) but looking at the ingredient lists on the standard cat food boxes & cans has made me want to do better by the other cats.
So has anyone got any suggestions for how I can reduce the amount of cat food packaging waste we’re producing? Anyone found any decent quality cat food (dry or wet) in large quantities rather than tiny sachets? Any popular homemade cat food recipes?
Categories: packaging, reduce this
Posted by louisa
on 16 July 2009
