Feeling Kettles in John Lewis and other useful tips for a plastic free kitchen
Feeling
kettles in John Lewis and other useful tips for a plastic free kitchen.
What a start to the year it has been. It is hard to
keep up with the plastic debate these days and something important seems to be
happening on a weekly basis. Here briefly, are my thoughts on what have been
the most significant developments in the past two months.
Firstly, China sensibly decided to not take any more of
our plastic waste to recycle.
This will cause a huge problem for the UK as a mountain
of plastic will build up until they figure out what to do with it (and many fear
they may landfill or burn it.) So for
all of you who thought it was OK to use plastic as long as you washed it up and put it in your
recycling, this is now not so OK.
As I have said all along we must try to not purchase any new plastic and hopefully
this blog and the resource pages here will help you to do this.
Theresa May announced a rather lame ambition of phasing
out “avoidable” plastic by 2042 (but even this showed that this government had
noticed plastic was an issue).
Within hours Iceland announced it was phasing out its
own plastic packaging in 5 years putting the government’s feeble time frame to
shame. Hopefully other supermarkets will follow their lead.
The Queen, having been affected by watching Blue
Planet, then got ahead and announced phasing out all single use plastic from Royal
households by 2020.
Four days later The BBC
followed suit, which was slightly
ironic considering it made Blue Planet and you think it might have noticed, but
better late than never.
More recently, Michael Gove announced a pledge to ban
plastic straws and tried vainly to score
some anti-EU points by implying that
Britain could do this sort of thing more quickly once Brexit happens, only for
Frans Timmermans to tweet that EU legislation is likely to ban them this Summer
with a glorious hash tag of #EUDoesntSuck
Frans Timmermans is the EU commissioner leading the
Circular Economy strategy document which is currently being consulted on in Brussels
and includes proposals for vital new laws which will hopefully ban single use
plastic (at least) and if so will have a global impact on plastic production.
It is the one to watch and I’ll do my best to decipher what is going on
and update you next time.
Meanwhile back in our kitchens…..
Thanks to all of you who sent in lists of plastic in
their kitchens. I have started a resource list here which I shall
continue to update as and when you tell me something new or I find a new
source.
I have divided this list (as before for bathrooms) into
once in a while purchases for equipment and kit and regular consumables. I have
also included utility room items as many of you have these merged into your
kitchen.
Kitchen
Equipment and Kit
As a basic rule of thumb don’t throw away any usable plastic
items currently in your kitchen. Wait until they have had it and then buy sensibly,
avoiding all new plastic.
I suggest investing in well made all metal equipment for most kitchen kit. Avoid plastic handles or other added parts
that once broken, render the item useless. There are oodles of choices out
there for pots, pans and cutlery and impossible to list here, but again go for solid
metal when you can.
Avoid “non stick” linings too as even with the gentlest
of handling the toxic lining will eventually start to disintegrate into your
food.
Go for metals such as iron, copper or stainless steel. It
may cost more up front but should last you a lifetime. You would have to be a
seriously bad or absent minded cook to destroy a set of stainless steel pots
and pans. And you get to leave them to your children.
I know we can’t avoid plastic in electric items at the
moment but how much electric kit do you really need in a kitchen? I
have one blender and a toaster (that refuses to die) but once it has I shall
use the grill. If you have to buy an
electric item try to get an industrial version as they are often much better
made than their plastic-heavy domestic equivalent. Try catering suppliers such as Nesbits.
Do be wary of buying any kit online, not only due to
possible excess packaging, but in case they don’t list all the materials. It is great to search on line but better to
go proper shopping if you can.
However we can all be fooled, which brings me onto
feeling kettles. ..
Last year I needed a new kettle. Keen to avoid a
plastic one I spent an hour or so in John Lewis fondling a selection of them on
their display shelves - much to my family’s exasperation; eventually forking
out for a Dualit kettle that seemed to be made mostly from metal.
However on writing up this blog I took a closer feel
and realised that a lot of it is made of plastic disguised as metal. What a con. Be vigilant.
I have concluded that the best bet is a good old
fashioned copper kettle on the hob. There are lots of good designs out there
and I have listed some on my resource page.
However I did learn my lesson from this fail as I
nearly bought some glass spray bottles online from John Lewis again (as a
non-plastic container for kitchen cleaning spray). But I thought I’d give them a quick feel
first in the shop and sure enough the metallic nozzle bit is made of plastic,
so now I am searching for those all-brass ones my granny used for spraying house
plants.
Also, literally, look into metal bins as many have
unnecessary hard plastic liners.
Tupperware and its’ like should be a thing of the past.
There are new stainless food containers coming onto the market in all sorts of
designs. Or get into finding decorated tins in charity shops and vintage fairs.
Look what I’ve collected recently (title photo). It can
become addictive.
Kitchen
Consumables.
Like bathroom cleaners it is hard to avoid plastic
containers for liquid cleaners or detergents. My best solution right now is to buy in bulk (15
litres) from eco suppliers and decant what you need into any old bottle you
have lying around. Like this.
If you have time to make your own cleaners then dripak
has a great website with good tips and recipes. They supply most of the ingredients
in cardboard boxes via many local iron mongers but I have yet to find a supplier
of large quantities of white vinegar in a non-plastic bottle. Maybe you can
help me?
Beware of so called biodegradable plastic bin liners
and bags as many are made from plastic but with a chemical additive that just
speeds up their disintegration into microplastic. Instead look out for
compostable bin liners as these are made from a vegetable based starch, which
is OK.
There was a flurry of debate on scrubbers on the fb
page and in the end coconut shells and husks seem to have won over an
appreciative audience.
In the 30 years or so of running my own kitchen I can’t
say I have ever used paper kitchen towels. I use cloths that I wash regularly.
Also I am slightly bemused by the need for Clingfilm
and as Clare said what is wrong with a bowl with a plate on top in the fridge?
I do understand that if you make regular pack lunches Clingfilm
might be useful (but a good lidded container should do) but now there are
beeswax wraps.
Surfers against Sewerage have started to sell them and lovely
Rachel sent in a recipe for us all to try, so I will.
Lastly the plastic elephant in this kitchen room is FOOD
and its PACKAGING and will be the subject of my next topic to analyse.
This will take some time and researching and please help
me if you can via the Escape from Plastic fb page.
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