Grist: How to build a zero-waste economy
Grist: How to build a zero-waste economy
American culture needs to “dispose of that disposable mindset, where everything is to be used and thrown away,”
Good gosh I've always hated how I often can't reuse packaging material and/or containers for something else. I would want to but (1) I get too many of them, (2) they're sometimes too dirty (for various reasons) to be able to reuse easily, and (3) even if I could come up with ways to reuse them I'd also have to convince people I live with.
We need to reduce the amount of stuff from further upstream, rather than just having consumers try to do all the three R's by themselves.
Good gosh I’ve always hated how I often can’t reuse packaging material and/or containers for something else.
It's unfortunately an isolated example because it's the only company I know of that does it, but I buy the brand of pasta sauce that comes in Mason jars specifically because it comes in Mason jars. It's funny: the company isn't actually happy about it and tries to warn against reuse of its jars (they claim they're too thin for actual canning), but they work fine for other things Mason jars get used for. They even tried to switch to lug style/twist-off style lids about a decade ago, but a wave of complaints (including one from me) forced them to switch back!
On a related note, I'm about to try using them for some pressure canning for the first time despite what the company says. (I'm not overly concerned about breakage because it's just chicken stock, which was made from the parts of the chicken I'd normally consider waste anyway). Wish me luck so I don't die from exploding glass shrapnel, LOL!
You should probably be fine if you do some prep work to make a containment chamber or whatever just in case, haha.
Alternatively if you're in the mood for research you can sacrifice some jars to get some pressure data on them first, before committing actual food to them.
Absolutely! The easiest way to not throw things away is to just have less things to throw away to begins with.
Yards of plastic when a wad of paper would do. I think we need to use natural biopolymers like cellulose and chitin much more. Packaging waste alone justifies the research cost needed to figure out the best way to make that work.
Our local bulk food store allows you to bring your own jars and containers, which is awesome.
Not awesome, however, are the prices they charge. This zero waste economy won't work unless everyone is playing on an even playing field.