Clean Up Your Kitchen
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 06.23.06
The kitchen can be a minefield when you are trying to be eco-friendly. Start with paper towels and paper napkins—a definite no-no. But how can we give up aluminium foil—it saves hours of pot scrubbing. The answer: 100% recycled aluminium foil, which uses a fraction of the energy needed to smelt aluminium. And the clingy plastic film that is so essential for wrapping up leftovers and covering smelly food? Instead use food covers made of 100% food-grade silicone which are reusable, pliable to fit all types of dishes and containers and good for the freezer. And then there are those plastic bags—so bad and so handy for just about everything… The answer: biodegradable corn starch bags which come in every size. They are now officially certified as fully compostable and made from 100% GM-free cornstarch. For the garbage can: large bin bags made from potato starch or 100% recycled polythene, also bio-degradable. And a special treat—a professional, high-specification digital scale made out of hemp plastic. The base is made from a blend of natural hemp fibres fused into a plastic compound to create a strong and lightweight new material. Keeping a greener kitchen suddenly seems like a real possibility. Incidentally, these products are all from Natural Collection which just won the Observer Ethical Award 2006 for Best Retailer.
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better yet -- take out food in my neck of the woods gives you about a foot of aluminum foil - wrapping up your bagel, naan, sandwich, etc.
Usually its in perfect shape and can be reused.
> Start with paper towels and paper napkins—a definite no-no.
Just a quick addition -- keeping a drawer full of reuseable dish cloths in the kitchen makes cutting back/cutting out paper towels a heck of a lot easier.
Instead of buying new items to wrap your food, just save large yogurt containers, peanut butter jars, etc. and use those to store food. The only downside is when you pull out a yogurt container to make a smoothie and instead of yogurt, it's full of tomato sauce...
Personally, I wouldn't reuse plastic containers that came with food--they are only meant for a single use and I'd be worried about them leaching plasticizers into my food after repeated use. If you want to reuse the containers your food comes in, buy food in glass jars or use the containers for non-food uses (they're great for hobby or desk stuff).
I'm not convinced that plasticizers leach out of old plastic at a higher rate than out of new plastic. If anything, the concentration of plasticizer should be higher in newer plastic resulting in a stronger concentration gradient between the plastic and the food.
Also, it's important to note that plasticizer leaching into food is an issue with polycarbonate products. As far as I know neither food-grade polyethylene Yogurt containers) nor polypropylene (Gladware disposables) contain plasticizers. There may be no cause for alarm at all.
An addendum from http://tst.glad.com/microwave_faq.html
GLAD® Cling Wrap and GLAD® Press ‘n Seal™ wrap are made from polyethelyene and GladWare® containers are produced from 100% polypropylene. Therefore, it would be impossible for dioxins to form when microwaving food using GLAD® Cling Wrap, GLAD® Press ‘n Seal™ wrap or GladWare® containers.
Finally, GLAD® Cling Wrap, GLAD® Press ‘n Seal™ wrap and GladWare® containers do not contain Bisphenol A, a building block used to make polycarbonate plastic products such as impact-resistant eyeglass lenses, food and beverage containers, helmets, compact discs, and other consumer products. GLAD® Cling Wrap, GLAD® Press ‘n Seal™ wrap and GladWare® containers are not made of polycarbonate.
Anyone else noticed that this brand of recycled foil disitegrates (almost like it's eaten away) when in contact with food, especially things like moussaka and lasagna? Seems quite dangerous...