Sunday, January 1, 2012

Going Zero Waste in the Kitchen

So, everyone knows we are tree-hugging-baby-wearing-composting-anti-chemical-animal rights-lactivist-miniminal-hippies right? JK ;) What everyone may not know is that my sissy and her hubby have gone zero waste in their home! They have a blog too: http://sharprs.blogspot.com/ . Since we have done zero waste things already under other names such as our ethical shopping that I have posted about previously, buying local, homemade cleaners, and focusing on recycling and composting, giving up cans, we figured this was naturally the next step. So, inspired by them, we made a resolution to add a zero waste kitchen to our lifestyle.

This weekend was our first trip out doing do. It really does not take that much more effort and we can pretty much get everything we want without concern. Yesterday, we started at the MERC because I wanted to try to replicate the Oregon Chai Latte Concentrate at home. Packing up we took: One Note grocery list on the Ipad, our big open picnic basket to carry jars and bags, 3 pyrex, 1 large glass jar, 1 small glass jar, 1 honey jar, and 4 hemp reusable bulk bags. At the store we bought 4 reusable spice bags and 1 reusable maple syrup container. We were happily surprised that much of the bulk at the MERC was cheaper than in Topeka and HyVee! We managed to get out the of the store with just the plastic bag liner to our cheese square box as landfill waste. Oh and the two little baggies the vanilla bean were in. WTF MERC, those baggies defeat the purpose of bulk! We will recycle cheese square box. We finished off the day wandering Mass St. We got a coffee at Starbuks. I had a glass bottle I bought at the MERC to use, but Matt did not so we had his lid and straw as waste and the cup as recycling that I believe Rob volunteered to take home. Yay for Rob!

We finished our shopping in Topeka the next day. At Hyvee we easily used our pyrex at the deli, meat, and seafood counters, but the bakery refused to let us use our own bag. Grr! She could not explain why she just kept saying she had to put it in a plastic bag because that is how they sell it. I also asked if she could make fresh baked bread to order and just just said all their bread is fresh. Some weeks we just don't want to have to make bread at home, but I guess HyVee will not be providing us an alternative. Other downers about the HyVee trip. Almost all the organic produce was package while the conventional produce was not. Seems a bit backwards. And, I was unable to buy celery and carrots for salads because ALL celery and carrot options were in non-recyclable plastic bags. HyVee wins for their fresh meat, deli, and bulk food section, but fails for the rest. Dillons has unbagged bread and produce in abundance. The Topeka Co-op bags up most of their bulk to sell sadly. I don't understand that concept. Waste from the HyVee trip: Landfill: sticker on tomato, grape bag, one paper sheet from meat section, and eventually the orange bag though it will be a sink scrubby first, Compost: 2 paper sheets from deli section. Recycle: strawberry container, cardboard orange box (we eat a lot of oranges). I hope to use the orange peels to scent the house and then compost and, of course, compost scraps like banana peels at Learning for Life.

Since we were unable to get bread at HyVee we decided to treat ourselves to Panera bread this time. We got a loaf of honey wheat and two bagels to make pizzas with. At the store they tried to put the bread in a plastic bag, each bagel in its own separate bag, give us napkins and plastic knifes, and put all of that in a larger paper bag. I kept having to say, 'ma'am, I brought a bag for that'. Thankful she listened. Waste from the Panera trip: 1 receipt which we will compost at Learning for Life.

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