Alternative Food Storage (Overview)

 

Being a household of just two (plus dog), we usually have lots of leftovers. Not just of cooked food, but mostly parts of fresh/raw ingredients. For example, only half of a tomato, a block of cheese, half of the ground beef, etc. We were using zip-lock bags LIKE CRAZY! And not reusing them. Once that tomato was used it, out went the bag, then the next tomato we cut into got a new bag!

Small Accomplishments #2

 

Today I made two changes in the house to help remind me to recycle some things I had previously not been doing. 

Keurigs and K-Cups

This post is about Keurigs, but the information may not be accurate for the Keurig 2.0 as they changed a lot of things. The k-cups are shaped differently and supposedly you can't use a reusable coffee filter on them anymore. Some if it will probably be relevant to other single-cup brewing systems but I personally only have experience with the Keurig.

I would like to remind my friends and family that I'm writing this blog and putting these ideas out there for anyone who is looking for ideas to reduce waste. I know plenty of people with Keurig's and I'm not going to yell at you or be upset if I go to your house and you throw out your k-cups. For me, recycling the k-cups works with my personal lifestyle, but maybe at this time doesn't for you.

If you go through tons of k-cups every day, perhaps you are wondering how you can cut back on the waste? First of all, if you compost food, you can open up your k-cups and put the coffee grounds in (I personally don't compost though). Here are three possible options I've thought of for reducing your k-cup waste:
1. Don't use k-cups with your Keurig
2. Recycle your k-cups
3. Buy more eco-conscious brands

Recycling Plastic Bags and Films

Plastic bags and plastic films are usually made of #2 HDPE (e.g. shopping bags) and #4 LDPE (e.g. bread bags). Almost all curb-side recycling programs will not except plastic bags and films even if they accept other #2 and #4 plastics. I'm pretty sure it's because of how thin they are, they do not separate from the rest of the recycling easily and get caught up in their machines.

If you want to collect these plastics and take them to a drop-off location, you have many options!

Recycle Numbers on Plastics

 

Super short post! This Earth911 article describes really well what each plastic number is. It's great to read through it and become familiar with them all.

http://www.earth911.com/eco-tech/the-ultimate-plastic-breakdown/

Just because a plastic item has the recycle symbol with a number inside that does not necessarily mean you can recycle it.

For example, #2 and #4 are often used for plastic bags, and are usually NOT curb-side recyclable. Even if your township accepts those numbers in general, often they have plastic bags as exceptions. Fortunately many grocery stores have drop-off locations for these plastics.

Similarly, Styrofoam is plastic #6 and even though my township accepts most #6, Styrofoam is an exception.

The next post will talk more about these plastics that are hard to recycle.


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