Still drinking here! Coffee, milk…tea… Isn’t it amazing how much beverage packaging we consume when water from the tap wastes zero packaging? Hummmm….

Anyway, on to tea. My mother is an avid tea drinker and really brews with science in mind. The water must be at the right temperature and she sets a timer to know the exact moment to pull those leaves out of the liquid to make the perfect pot of tea. I am a casual tea drinker. I like mine sweetened with honey…and occasionally like milk or lemon in a cup of Earl Grey. But to the casual tea drinker, many might suggest individually sealed tea bags keep a fresh tea taste longer. But to the eco-friendly tea drinker this might not be the solution!

A box of individual tea bags wastes:

• 1 plastic shrink wrapper
• 1 cardboard box
• 1 waxed paper pouch or 20 paper pouches
• 20 tea baggies string, staple and paper tab included (which can be composted, although if bleached, I don’t know if you’d want these in your compost)
• and 20 teaspoons of tea leaves and herbs

What if you were to purchase a tin of loose tea? What then would you waste?

• 1 tin (which can be reused)
• 1 plastic shrink wrap (I haven’t ordered tea in a bit, so this was new to me…the company didn’t use to do this)
• 1 corrugated cardboard box

(Notice here I am ignoring the fossil fuel costs of mail ordering this tin of loose tea. If you are lucky enough to have a tea shop near you, shipping wouldn’t be an issue. And that extra paper thing you see in the box is the company’s catalog. So, maybe you’d have to toss that too, or make a paper-mâché bunny for Easter if you like to re-purpose.)

A wasted packaging tie you delight! Well, maybe not really. A 125g tin of black tea with mango makes 49 cups of tea per the package directions. So, that would actually be 2 1/2 boxes of individual tea bags…or to taste that much tea you’d have to toss,

• 2.5 plastic shrink wrappers
• 2.5 cardboard boxes
• 2.5 waxed paper pouches or 50 paper pouches
• 50 tea baggies
• and 125 grams of tea leaves and herbs

That is a whole lot of wasted packaging. Buy loose tea leaves. You need only buy a tea strainer, or one of those aluminum eggs with the holes in it, to brew your own cup of tea and feel better about wasting less paper and plastic packaging.

Has it really been 10 days of packaging discussion already? Milk, coffee, applesauce, magazines, meats, paper towels, juice, popsicles and chai tea lattes…yep, 10 days. 10 more days of packaging discussions to go.

Although it seems many of these purchases are kitchen related, I can think of so many more items we consume and packaging that we waste. The very cute, big-girl-bed and dresser, given to my daughter, came packaged in styrofoam bags, plastic wrappers, cardboard space-fillers, and (4) gigantic cardboard boxes from Thailand. The plastic toys the kids get during the holidays that have those plastic and wire twist ties, tape, cardboard, and plastic-windowed boxes are pretty wasteful too. Or a computer packed in boat-loads of styrofoam, cardboard and plastic packaging…ack!! Now we are getting into the realm of plastic packed inside of plastic. Why IS that? Why is EVERYTHING packaging in plastic? And we wonder why we are so dependent on oil. Okay, that was a little too soap-boxy. *sigh*

My family has come to rely on certain conveniences and plastic products are among those. We are simply trying to open our eyes and become interested, enfranchised, and mindful of our responsibility to preserve the earth. Modern inventions and advances in technology aren’t always bad in my book. I prefer indoor plumbing, central air, and vehicle mobility. But I know I must choose carefully and consume responsibly so my children and their children will have an earth to inherit.

Since we are on a packaging discussion beverage trend here, why don’t we continue with milk.

Remember those days of yore when the milk man delivered glass bottles full of milk settled into wire baskets? And when the family consumed what was inside you set out the empty bottles for the delivery man to pick up. What waste is there in that? Perhaps the bottle caps?

FF>> to present day…our family thinks little of plopping a couple plastic gallon containers into our shopping cart. Only to later plop those same plastic gallon containers into the trash. When we had two little ones taking bottles that was about 2 1/2 plastic containers in the landfill a week or 150 per year!! Yikes.

I just found a more eco-friendly alternative at our natural foods store. With this glass container you need only waste the plastic carry-thingie and the bottle cap. Return the bottle to the grocery to get a deposit refund and feel much better about throwing out less.

There is however, a hefty price tag that goes with this more eco-friendly product. (Why is it that throwing out less costs you more?) A gallon of milk in a glass container is 400% of the cost of conventional milk in plastic. And it is still 125% of the cost of a gallon of organic milk in a plastic container. THAT is expensive.

My children love the taste of this un-homogenized milk and we go through it pretty quick. I love the creamy taste too, and love baking with it. Special occasions I say.

Which brings me to, why is it that less wasted packaging costs more? Or is it that price is relative? What if all milk were $7.58 a gallon? Would we use less? Would we use it more frugally? Would we waste less? Would we choose alternatives? Hummm. This made me think a bit about what we choose to put in our fridge and how much we choose to consume. Are we just accustomed to excess? How do we re-orientate our minds and our pocketbooks to consume more responsibly and waste less? THAT is difficult I say.

My morning pick-me up. My friend. My coffee-filled cup accompanies me to the computer in the morning. That fresh brewed aroma…the nutty, creamy, and rich taste sets me off in the right direction.

When purchasing items like coffee, sometimes there are choices to be made. You can’t well just plop a pound of loose coffee beans in your cart, so packaging is a must. What type of packaging do you choose. Is there a lesser evil?

As I was scooping my morning coffee out of it’s foil pouch, my husband wondered out loud, “were did coffee cans go?” We reminisced for a bit about the coffee cans of our youth. They held nails, screws and bolts in the garage. They held dirt and small plants. We punctured them with an awl to make candle lanterns. Those tin cans had a million second lives.

There are tin coffee cans, plastic coffee tubs, foil and plastic lined coffee pouches, and perhaps you can purchase coffee in bulk…though I haven’t seen this yet. (Have I just not been looking? Readers, enlighten me please.)

Fast forward a few decades from the prehistoric coffee-can era to today. Companies want to save money and are selling their coffee in thin foil lined pouches. Where do they go? Usually they are tossed in the trash is my guess. Although this particular organic coffee pouch can be returned to a brick and mortar store for a free tall cup of coffee. Good way to keep these babies out of the landfill I say.

I prefer to drink the stuff in the pouch. It tastes better. I prefer to buy the stuff in the can. I like cans. It is actually difficult to find a coffee can. Try to find a can of coffee the next time you go to the grocery. Hummmm. This may just boil down to a lifestyle choice. Unfortunately the lesser packaging product doesn’t always fit your lifestyle. Nevertheless, I am certainly game to try the next more eco-friendly coffee I find.

I thought applesauce was applesauce. It grows in its own biodegradable, sustainable, compost-able packaging called a skin. You pluck it ripe and juicy from a tree in the brisk sunny days in autumn. Peal it and toss that “packaging” in your compost, cook up the wonderfully sweet flesh, and after a run through the food mill, presto, *apple sauce.* Canning it is best for preservation, although a sleep in the chest freezer could do as well.

Eat applesauce in a cake, eat it as a snack…I take vitamins I don’t want to taste with this stuff. My children eat so much, I feel they are going to turn into a small apple. So we buy the biggie jar from the grocery store. I feel glass jars are best for food storage; the less plastic that comes in contact with our food the better. And, we so toss into our recycling bin that large glass jar when we are all done.

Recently, we found these little, reclosable, very convenient, packets of applesauce. They stand up. The cap screws back on. Oh so convenient when your toddler doesn’t finish it all. They are easy to open, and easy to squeeze. The fruit inside is yummy and there are different flavors! And when you finish this pin-sized portion of sauce you can toss:

• 4 plastic/foil pouches
• with 4 plastic screw-on caps
• and that wonderful cardboard box.

All that packaging in the trash for only 12.6 oz of apple-y goodness! (4) packages would equal the applesauce in (1) large glass jar. Not to mention that this convenience will run you about 75¢ each. Whew! I think we know who is the less-packaging winner here!

I think we are going to try canning a bit of applesauce this year. It is a good way to go organic, keep a bit more cash in our pocket, and consume a lot less packaging. Raise your applesauce spoon, *here is to less packaging!*

**There will, will, will be a crafty update this week. I am working to finish a few projects and hope to have a few moments to stitch and knit!** Have a wonderful Monday!

I love getting mail. I love, love, love, opening the mail box and finding something addressed to me that is fun and entertaining. Sometimes that is a letter or photos. Sometimes it is gorgeous inspiring fabric. Sometimes it is chocolate. (Note, in the winter only do I mail order chocolate. Melted goodness in the summer, or that pesky extra rush shipping fee are no fun.) Sometimes it is magazines.

I love foodie magazines, natural living magazines, and personal finance and business magazines. Gotta keep up with those tech entrepreneur trends! Okay, maybe not that important, and isn’t it interesting I didn’t list any crafting, sewing, or knitting magazines? Hummm.

Anyway, you ask, what packaging do magazines require? Well, mine come either enter my abode with an extra paper outer to protect it’s front page, like one above, or with plastic shrink wrap packaging stuffed with offer and subscription mailers that just go in the recycling bin. Most of my magazines also end up in the recycling bin, minus a few pages that were torn out and inserted into my crafting binder or recipe folder.

So why retain only the knowledge from the printed pages and toss out the entire stack of inked paper you pay for each year? Why not go to your library or the internet for the same information? You’d save some money and you’d throw out a lot less paper.

Next week, stay tuned for more packaging discussions about choosing to consume less paper and plastic. Maybe at the end of all this, my family will throw away less too. Have a great weekend!

Meat, meat, meat. Hummmm. This packing competition is perhaps a toss up if you look at from one point of view.

Meat from the grocery requires:

• plastic wrap,
• a styrofoam dish
• maybe a plastic baggie to keep bacteria from getting all over everything else the package touches
• and that weird suck-up-the-moisture pad thingie I try to avoid touching all together.

Meat from your local farm requires:

• a plastic vacuum freezer pouch (and the one in this picture also has a piece of freezer paper wrapped around the cut bone so it doesn’t puncture the plastic.)

Okay, the plastic freezer pouch weights more than the plastic wrap you get from the store, but my local farmer didn’t give me any styrofoam packaging. In terms of waste weight, I’d say this packaging conundrum is equal. In terms of avoiding styrofoam, the local meat wins out.

There isn’t always going to be a less-packaging winner. Sometimes the product that requires more packaging just fits your lifestyle better. Sometimes, different types of packaging have different trade offs. Just use the brain and think about what you are consuming. Conscious consumption is always best.

My January One Small Change inspired by Hip Mountain Mama was to cut our paper towel usage. You can read about our cut-the-paper-towel-usage-journey here. To make a long story short, we were successful, and we don’t use nearly as many paper towels. (Although, I must confess, I do use them to clean my beloved Le Cruset 12-inch cobalt blue cast iron fry pan.) But, our severely decreased usage means we still have this; see above.

What do we throw away when we use all 1080 paper towel sheets?

• 12 shrink wrap wrappers
• 12 cardboard tubes
• one HUGE plastic wrapper that held all 12 rolls and is large enough to picnic on.
• oh, and one thousand and eighty (1080) paper towels!

What do we throw away when we use dish towels, miracle cloths, washies, and cloth napkins?

• The cardboard box that holds 42 loads of detergent.

42 laundry loads is a lot of dish towels which, unlike a paper towel, we use to clean up more than one mess. Some of what we toss out is recycleable or reuseable. However, I can only tolerate so many paper towel tube telescopes, loud speakers, and brandishing weaponry that seeks to threaten my wall decor. Why even choose to consume more packaging if there is a good-for-your-lifestyle option that means less paper and plastic in your shopping cart?

After this stash, I don’t think we will be buying that much throw-away packaging ever again. And that feels pretty good.

Stay tuned for 16 more days of discussion about choosing to purchase less packaging. Up next, meat…

Day 3 in a discussion about packaging.

How are you thinking about the amount of packaging you consume?

It must seem to you that all my family does is drink liquids. Chai tea, frozen popsicles, and now juice. It is just that our family seems to consume tons liquid that made its way into our home inside of a package.

I think this choice is a bit obvious.

Toss:

1 plastic juice container (or 48oz can)

or toss:

8 small non-recyclable juice boxes or juice pouches,

and 8 little plastic straws that came inside 8 little plastic liners

and that plastic shrink wrap or cardboard box everything came inside.

Sure many of these items are recyclable, or reusable, but their production and recycle processes require energy. Why not bring less of this packaging into your home and throw out less too?

For an on-the-go family taking drinks with is a necessity. We have Camelbak sippies and Kleen Kanteens but I don’t like to put juice in these for fear it will sour and mold will grow on the inside of our drink holders. Maybe we should just forgo the juice and drink more water. Oh, wait, our county has some of the worst municipal water in the country. We’ll save that for another post…

Day 2 in a discussion about packaging.

As I began to open my eyes, and notice all the printed cardboard, plastic shrink wrap, and packing peanuts coming through my front door, I started to wonder, where does this come from, how can I lessen it, and why is it necessary? I am perplexed and slightly in awe of how our society has transformed life into a face-paced, disposable, never-look back hamster wheel. And I wonder how I landed squarely on that wheel that spins round and round and doesn’t go anywhere. Sometimes you even get a bit behind; backed up between the 9 o’clock and 6 o’clock sides. Maybe this is why we consume so much packaging. Maybe this is why we don’t know what to do with it, so we throw it out.

Well, this month, spurred by Hip Mountain Mama’s One Small Change challenge, I plan to lessen the paper, plastic and Styrofoam we throw away everyday; for our environment, for our bodily health, and for our sanity.

Yes, we are a year-round popsicle family. Well, the kids do the consumption here. Sensitive teeth kind of get the better of me personally. In the throws of a bad toddler stomach illness, I snuck into that I-am-convenience-with-tons-of-sugar-and-preservatives-section of the grocery store, aka the frozen food section, and popped a bit of frozen liquid delight  into my cart, hoping that these babies would somehow calm and hydrate my son’s poor little body.  Well, he loved them. Red no. 40 and all. Since, we have switched to a more natural brand that doesn’t add artificial ingredients, but we still come home with

• 12 little plastic wrappers,
• 12 sticks of wood,
• a cardboard box,
• and sometimes even a piece of shrink wrap large enough to erect a greenhouse for a hedgehog.

How to eliminate this extra throw-away? Make your own popsicles.

I snagged these molds at Ikea. Plastic I know. Not the best, but hey, the food isn’t going to be on contact with this plastic for that long. Little popsicle-vores. I simply make a smoothie in the blender, or pour a bit of 100% juice into the mold, replace the stick-top, and freeze. To un-mold, run the container under warm water and the popsicle will slide right out. Home-made popsicle throw-away:

• Juice container (we get ours in those tin-48 oz cans which you can recycle, or reuse…I made punched lanterns out of these things as a kid. MS has a good how-to here. Or Google the phrase.)

Make-your-own (MYO) is the less packaging route hands down. It doesn’t take too much time to open a container of juice, pour, and freeze. The kids aren’t yet brand-sensitive-consumers, (but they will be) and like this frozen version just as much as the boxed kind. I wash the molds in the sink with a bottle brush, or some versions maybe dishwasher safe. I think MYO wins out here in the packaging throw-away challenge.

Why is MYO the poll-winning answer so far here on 20 Days of Packaging? Time versus money I get. Time versus the environment…my jury is still out on this one. Is it just another horn sound alerting me that I should “slow-down” a bit for the world around me?

Update: found another wonderful tutorial for a tin can punched luminary with pictures here!

I love chai tea lattes. Got hooked on these in grad-school when I was perpetually holed-up at that green-fairy-from-Seattle-logo place with my corporate merger and acquisitions tax review textbook cramming in a bit of studying.

Though I don’t get to the coffee shop much anymore (oh, but if they had drive-thru….) I do so love these cardamom scented, sweet, caffeinated, creamy delights. So when I discovered the above in the grocery, I plopped one in my cart pronto. Just one taste of this honey-sweetened, warm-you-through goodness reminded me that I have my degree, don’t need to study, and that I wanted more. I wanted so much more, I was throwing away a carton a week. That is 52 of these non-recyclable cardboard, plastic-lined, plastic-spouted, rather large, doo-hickeys a YEAR going in our landfills, to be buried and haunt the living population for centuries to come.

Okay, there is an alternative, brew your own chai tea.

Is this brewing at home more economical? I don’t know. Is there less packaging? Definitely.

I can reuse

• the cardboard box and the tin my tea came in
• the twine and cheese cloth I use to brew the spices and tea
• glass and plastic spice containers
• the glass or plastic honey container
• I can use a reusable produce bag to carry home my fresh ginger root

I throw away

• the 1 plastic Ziploc bag that held my peppercorns (1 baggie holds a year’s supply, or 1 lb, of peppercorns)
• the plastic milk jugs that make my tea a latte!

A note about these 20 days of packaging: Fossil fuel consumption is certainly a valid measure of green-ness, but I am not going to use it here. I am simply going to discuss the packaging I choose to bring into my home, and that which I discard. I think there is enough fodder here for discussion without going down other avenues.

So, does it taste the same? Definitely. And I can make the taste my own. I like more honey-sweetness, and a bit more cardamom spiciness. Here is my recipe.

***Chai Tea Latte Recipe***

Gather the following in a cheese cloth and close the top with a length of kitchen twine.

1/8C South African Rooibos Superior loose tea (actually this is a bark that brews a wonderful red tea, you can also use a straight black tea of your choice)

1 1/2″ long knob of ginger (I use one that is about as wide as a quarter)

20 black peppercorns (my favorite are tellicherry from India)

10 whole allspice

(1) 3″ large cinnamon stick

1t cardamom seeds (or use the green cardamom pods)

Put 6 C of water in a sauce pan and float your cheesecloth bundle. Bring to a boil over medium heat uncovered and then turn off the heat. Let cool. Remove the cheesecloth bundle and discard contents (in your compost if you have one!)

Decant into a pitcher and place in the fridge. Use with in 1 week.

To make your latte: mix 1/2 tea, 1/2 milk and microwave this until hot. Sweeten with honey to taste and enjoy. (I use about 1T of honey to 12 oz of latte.)

* * *

So what kind of packaging do you consume on a weekly basis? Is there away you can substitute another product, make something at home, or use a reusable bag to decrease the amount of packaging you bring through your front door? Is the substitute economical? Is it affordable? Why is it that we “consume” so much cardboard, ink, plastic shrink wrap, disposable re-sealable bags, and tin foil lids? And where does this all go when it leaves our home? I plan to discuss some of these in the coming posts as I weave my way through 19 more tales of an on-the-go-suburban family striving to be more responsible consumers.

Next up: popsicle packaging…yes, we consume these in the dead of winter. Have a wonderful weekend!