Sometimes we have to look for creative solutions.
I like to call it ‘thinking outside the plastic bag.’
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Mark came sidling into the kitchen with a confession as I washed some baking dishes.
“I don’t LIKE that homemade dish detergent,” he said. “Nothing feels CLEAN.”
I was scrubbing a pan in which I’d cooked pork chops. The glass pan, no matter how hard I scrubbed, felt greasy. I attacked it with a Brillo pad—probably not the best thing for the glass—and it got some better.
I got Mark’s point.
How do we balance plastic-freedom and cleanliness?
So I researched other homemade cleaners, unsuccessfully. I searched and searched for companies that offer non-plastic packaging. (I found only one, after hours of looking. And that one required that I sign up to receive a whole array of cleaning supplies every month. That is a commitment I don’t want to make. I just want my dish detergent.)
I did, however, find the mop I wanted on Amazon: it comes with a yarn-y kind of moppy part, but once that’s being laundered, I can replace it with anything I like. Soft clean strips of old t-shirts will do nicely, I think. (Old t-shirts are rapidly becoming my very good friends.)
I thought about a bucket for the mop, and then suddenly I discovered that I can order dish detergent in five-gallon buckets.
(“No!” many Internet zero-waste folks cried. “Don’t get plastic buckets!”)
We ordered the bucket. We got ourselves a funnel. We’ll load our own dish detergent into spare bottles, and when it’s finally done, we’ll have a new mop bucket. I think the five gallons of suds will last us for several months.
It is not a perfect solution. But it will buy us some time…time in which to further research the dish detergent issue.
And in that time, I won’t be recycling dish detergent containers.
I went ahead and ordered five gallons of laundry detergent, too.
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Jim came home from work and said, “Guess what? Janelle says the Campbell’s in Duncan Falls wraps everything in paper!”
I was surprised that James takes our plastic-free quest to work with him…surprised and gratified. I think. (I hope he’s not bemoaning the lack of cheese wrapped in plastic or the dearth of bony chicken… I hope he’s saying to his bosses, “Isn’t this cool, what we’re doing?” But I am not quite sure.)
So we took a ride yesterday.
I thought it was auspicious that the little market and gas station complex were called ‘The Redhead.’ We went in and found semi-sweet baking chocolate, in card paper sleeves, on sale. That made it worth the 17-minute drive, already.
And then we met a tiny, sweet-natured, meat counter clerk. She processed my paper only request, nodded, and packed me up two packages of ground chuck (on sale! 2.79 a pound! And it looks so good…) and six lean pork chops.
When I asked for sliced American and a chunk of super sharp cheese, though, she reached for the plastic.
“May I have the cheese in paper, too?” I asked.
“You want your CHEESE in paper?” she blurted. Then she re-arranged her face.
“Of course,” she said. “Of course!”
When we got to the checkout, the cashier picked up the cheese and scoffed.
“Who wrapped THIS?” she asked. When I told her I asked for it that way, she rolled her eyes and shrugged.
She snorted when, having forgotten to bring my canvas bags, I asked to have the groceries put in paper.
But we can brave a little skepticism for plastic-free meat and cheese.
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And then, one night, I thought, “College town.”
There is a little town, Granville, the site of Dennison University, not far from here. It has a library and a couple of chocolatiers that we love, and it has, too, a little IGA. There are gentle, fun, funky folks in this town…the kind that talk about recycling issues at town council meetings.
Surely, in a town like that, the plastic-free request would not seem weird.
I dragged Jim on a road trip to Granville. We hit the library and spent a happy 45 minutes browsing there, and then we went to the IGA.
The butcher there, a tall, spare, youngish man, didn’t flinch.
“Of course,” he said. “I can put whatever you want in paper. I can’t guarantee you we didn’t receive it in a big plastic container, but I can package it for you in paper.”
Again, not perfect. But we’re getting there.
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So the mop and the dishes and the laundry and the cheeses…sorted for the time being. Tomorrow I’ll try baking with my new gluten-free flour mix. Compromises and creative thinking, I hope.
Still looking for a make-up solution, though…
