The average American kitchen is well-stocked with disposable items such as paper towels, napkins, paper plates, plastic wrap, aluminum foil, garbage bags, etc. There’s no denying the convenience of these items but at what cost – both to our budget and the environment? With a change in mindset and a little effort it’s really not that hard to ditch the disposables.
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Ditch the Disposables
Paper Plates
I’m surprised how often I see people share photos of their dinner on Instagram only to notice that it’s on a paper plate. There are times paper plates make sense – picnics, barbecues, parties, a large number of guests, or severe illness are all valid reasons to use paper plates but for many, it just becomes a habit. Not only does this generate excessive trash but it’s expensive, too.
If you’ve been in the habit of using paper plates routinely for family meals, start by choosing one night a week that you set the table with real dishes and maybe even light some candles. Elevate the atmosphere a bit. Gradually replace one weekly meal at a time with real dishes until paper plates are a thing of the past.
Paper Napkins
I grew up in a family that ate on real plates but used paper napkins. We continued this in my own family until about 10 years ago. I bought a set of black (so stains won’t show) cloth napkins and we began using these instead. Over time I’ve purchased others so I now have a pretty decent sized collection. I have enough for small gatherings but for larger parties I do still buy paper napkins. It’s all about moderation, right?
Paper Towels
Americans use WAY more paper towels per capita than any other country. It would take 51,000 trees per day to replace the number of paper towels that are tossed each day. Not only is that a terrible impact on the environment but it’s expensive, too.
We now keep one roll tucked away in a cabinet for just a couple of uses. I use a couple of sheets to drain and blot oil from fried tortillas for tacos and that’s about it. Each day I put out a clean tea towel to dry our hands on in the kitchen and I use rags for cleaning. I have a couple of microfiber cloths for mirrors and windows. This was actually a pretty easy transition for us.
Plastic Wrap
I do keep a roll on hand for those occasions when I bring a dish to a potluck and I need to cover it. At home I either put leftovers in containers that have lids or I use my grandma’s old trick – I put a plate on top of the bowl. In fact, I even have one of her old Melmac plates that I use for that purpose. It’s perfect on top of a big bowl of homemade potato salad and it even allows me to stack something on top which you can’t do with plastic wrap.
Aluminum Foil
Again, I do still use foil occasionally but I try to limit it. Here is a really good article about aluminum foil alternatives:
The Best Aluminum Foil Alternatives for a Healthier, Zero Waste Lifestyle
Garbage Bags
This one is tricky. Conventional garbage bags are made from virgin plastic and will never biodegrade. There are bags made from partially recycled plastic and some that are compostable. None of these are perfect solutions, though.
After trying several types of garbage bags made from recycled plastic and finding them less than satisfactory in terms of strength, we decided to skip the bags altogether. Instead, we place a layer of newspaper in the bottom of our kitchen trash can. I put food scraps in a compost bucket (when I’m not being lazy) and rinse packaging from meat or other messy items. When the kitchen trash can is full we dump it in tightly lidded garbage can outside our back door and then when it’s full we dump the contents into the large trash receptacle by the road that gets picked up once a week. We try to avoid excessive packaging and other sources of trash so we only end up putting trash out for pickup once or twice a month under normal circumstances.
This works for us out in the country but I’m aware that some (most?) municipal trash services want trash to be bagged. The truth is that there is no perfect solution. The best option is to reduce the trash we create as much as possible. Here is a great article about this written by Beth Terry. I had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with her several years ago. In 2007 she committed to stop buying new plastic and has since become an expert of the best sort – the type who lives what she preaches.
Collecting Garbage Without Plastic Trash Bags?
It’s easy to get overwhelmed if you try to make all these changes at once. I suggest picking just one and work on it until it feels like second nature. Then move on to another. And don’t feel like you have to do any of these perfectly. Even small changes add up over time. You’ll save money and you’ll feel good about treating the environment better.
More Information:
How to Have a Paper-Free Kitchen
Americans Are Weirdly Obsessed With Paper Towels
Ditch paper towels and save $1000 in five years
You may also enjoy this post:
Create a Beautiful Life: Cloth Napkins and Real Dishes
We only ever use paper plats for large gatherings, and since we don’t do many of them, it means very rarely. Same with disposable napkins.
We keep a roll of paper towels on hand, but only use it when we need to, so that a roll lasts us about a month (more often than not, longer, actually).
Freezable reusable containers are my go to option for most leftovers, unless I need to keep them out of the freezer, like prepared salads, or tomorrow’s dinner that’s made from today’s leftovers, in which case I use the plate method you do. We only use foil when we need to, and use plastic wrap so rarely we’re still using the roll we brought with us when we moved in to this place more than four years ago.
Garbage bags are the problem with us. We don’t have anywhere to compost things, and the council is strict about things being in bags – bags of the right colour too – so we have no choice but to make use of them. Even worse, the bags over here are much smaller than over with you, so are filled more quickly. Based on the bin I know we had in Canada, which hubby tells me is standard over there, and I believe is the same for in the US, the bags are about quarter of the size of yours. Even so, we keep things as low as we can, and most weeks only have a bag of “general rubbish” (anything they don’t consider recyclable, which has to include compostable items – like the stuff from cleaning the cages, and what little food waste we end up with – in our case, because we have no other alternative) and another of recyclable items. Some weeks we don’t have enough to make it worth taking out the recycling bag, and we get the odd week we might end up taking down two of the other sort, but mostly it’s one of each every week. Considering I know many people who put out the same – or more – with less people in the house (as in, people who live alone) and no cages to be cleaned, I’m actually proud of us for that. I do wish we had an alternative to plastic bags to put the stuff in though.
It sounds like you are doing really well. It doesn’t have to be perfect but if everyone did what they can it would make a huge difference.
Yes, every little helps. 🙂
Like!! Really appreciate you sharing this blog post.Really thank you! Keep writing.
Our garbage needs to be bagged to be put in our condo dumpster. We keep our garbage to a minimum by recycling everything possible and use plastic shopping bags instead of buying specialty garbage bags (except for cat litter).
This summer we went back to using bags for kitchen trash. It was getting pretty gross in our outdoor trash cans in the summer heat. I’m not sure if we will continue this winter or not. We get very few plastic shopping bags so I do have to buy kitchen trash bags. Plus we have one of those tall, retro chrome cans so we need the tall bags.
Everyone’s situation is different and it can change over time. The important thing is for each of us to do our best. 🙂