DANTAisms

Plastic is ruining our Earth and what are you doing about it?

According to the food wrap company etee, of the 300 million tons of plastic we make each year, most is used once and thrown out(straws!), with only 6% being recycled. The real problem is that plastic doesn’t decompose or biodegrade. It just becomes smaller and smaller plastic particles, with a lot of marine animals ingesting it.

Do I need to remind you of the microbeads in soap epidemic? If you forgot how messed up our oceans are check out this video:

While Bill Nye is trying to save the world over at Netflix, there are lots of stuff we could be doing to reduce our plastic usage at home.

I am now the proud owner of 6 etee food wraps. etee which stands for everything touches everything else can’t stand single use plastics like plastic wrap, sandwich bags, grocery bags and cutlery and neither can I. At parties that I host, I always provide reusable metal cutlery. Guests often comment that it would be much easier if I had plastic forks for me to throw away during clean up. The problem is there is no ‘away’. Everything is connected. Everything will touch everything else eventually. In addition to the environmental costs of throwing away the plastic fork, I think about the pollution-spewing-factories that made the items and the fossil-fuel-burning trains and trucks that delivered the cargo to the store. It’s a horrible contaminating system for which we must break free.

My etee food wraps allow me to eliminate plastic wrap in my kitchen. Inspired by King Tut these wraps are made out of beeswax, coniferous tree resin, organic jojoba oil, organic cinnamon essential oil, organic clove essential oils, hemp and organic cotton. All this combines to make a non-toxic, plastic free, sustainable, reusable, biodegradable and compostable product. The wraps last on average 120-150 uses.

When you first receive your wraps you will need to warm them up with your hands to make them pliable. The idea is that the wrap sticks to itself. So when you are covering a mason jar, or bowl, you fold the wrap onto itself. Full video instructions can be viewed on their website.

In one of the videos he covers a bowl of tomatoes and flips them over to show the strength of the wrap. Here is a video of me experimenting with a wrap over a bowl of rice from the rice cooker:

Success!

On their website, etee gives you some suggestions on what the wraps could be used for

1. Small Teal wrap (7″ x 8″) – good for cut cucumbers, avocados, small trail mix, fruit and to top jars.

2. Medium Green wrap (10″ x 11″) – good for cheese, trail mix, half a sandwich, half a cabbage, medium bowls, grape tomatoes and baked goods

3. Large Blue wrap (12″ x 14″) – good for sandwiches & left over pizza slices, celery, cheese, larger bowl or dish, larger melon, grapes, greens, beans and asparagus.

Saran/plastic wrap was invented in 1943. It’s time to change our ways. Just today the EU proposes a ban on everyday plastic items. etee’s product is a great resource for those trying to save the world.

Kenny Coogan is a food, farm, and flower columnist for various magazines. His newest book, “99 ½ Homesteading Poems” will be released this fall. Search “Critter Companions by Kenny Coogan” on Facebook or KennyCoogan.com to learn more.