Plastic Free July 2017, Ep 1

It's been a couple of years since I have documented my Plastic Free July efforts. I've been busy, OK? Well I never stopped making an effort to be plastic free year round and have added some new efforts. Let's take a look at what I've been up to in the first week:...

Canned beverages. Plastic down-cycles, and aluminum recycles really efficiently, so I exclusively buy soda in cans. When there's a party I insist on bringing the soda so that no one's bringing 2-liter plastic bottles. 

Pasta from scratch! I don't really get credit for this, Boyfriend starting making fresh pasta long before me. But I strongly encourage this and we are getting the attachment to make penne & rotini so that we can make all our pastas at home. 

Reusing a chinese take-out container. 

Ketchup. This one has been plaguing me since the first year I participated in Plastic Free July. It's really hard to find ketchup in anything but plastic! I had to buy some weird brand at a health-food store to get it in glass that year. When I ran out of that I tried making it myself. It was fine for me but Boyfriend is really particular about his ketchup being Heinz. 

I searched Amazon for glass bottles. I found a case of 24 12oz bottles that were a decent price but I shuttered at the idea of trying to store all of the extra bottles. We don't actually use ketchup that much. I sought out options on a restaurant-supply store. There I got the idea for this: 

Yes, that is a 114oz can of ketchup (purchased from Amazon). I discussed this as an option with Boyfriend (before buying). We are going to refill our plastic bottle, and use canning jars to store the rest once opened. It's less than the 24-bottle case. Wish us luck. 

The last item for today: hot dogs and hamburgers. It's not easy to have a 4th of July party and be plastic free! Luckily, boyfriend likes making bread products and agreed to make us the buns plastic free!

What about the meats? you ask. Well hot dogs are basically impossible to get plastic free, so I had to forfeit that battle, but if you bring your own container to the grocery store, you can get your hamburger meat plastic free!

I did have an issue with the guy claiming that he couldn't tare my container which is very hard to believe, so I'm going to try a different supermarket and/or try again when someone else is working. THE SCALE HAS A TARE DISPLAY ON THE OUTFACING SIDE. I DON'T BELIEVE YOU! I  unfortunately did not get photos. But I promise it happened. 

Stay tuned for more plastic-free-ness next week!