Thursday, April 15, 2010

Foil vs. Wrap? How About Neither?

The Washington Post's The Green Lantern had a post this week comparing the environmental footprint of aluminum foil & plastic wrap. But nowhere in the article is mentioned that most mysterious of treehugger tools:

I store all my leftovers in Tupperware. Don't have to worry about leaks, spills or smells. And once the leftovers are gone, it gets washed & reused instead of thrown away.

As is so often the case, the environmental decision is also the best economic one. A few dollars worth of Tupperware has lasted me more than five years. (My previous set of Tupperware was lost in an unfortunate incident where my last roommate thought the broiler was a storage drawer. No, really. Kitchen smelled like melted plastic for about two weeks.)

I go through about one roll of aluminum foil every two years as liner for baking dishes. And I don't buy plastic wrap at all, partly because it's wasteful, but mostly because it's a pain. Even if you can somehow manage to get a sheet off the roll, then transfer it to the top of the container, it's a tossup on whether it'll actually stick to it. There's about a 75% chance you end up feeling like an idiot.

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