Plastic Wrap Alternative - DIY Cotton Beesewax Wraps

Plastic is everywhere and it's so daunting that most people seem to decide, "What's the use?" and not bother trying. For a lot of people plastic wrap is an item receiving every day use in their household. How can you kick the habit of using something that has become so integral? By using beesewax cotton wraps.

I learned about this source post from My Healthy Green Family for todays craft while I was perusing the My Plastic Free Life Facebook fan page.

Although I can happily say that we do not use much plastic wrap in our house I can't say that we don't have a regular use for it. How can that be? I've never really bought it so there's never any in the house, but my husband tends to be a lot of leftovers in the fridge completely uncovered. By creating a plastic wrap alternative to provide a man that I sometimes have a hard time getting to put things in our recycled plastic containers I stand a better chance of not finding a bowl of baby cereal/food all dried out on the top shelf of our refrigerator.

I started off with some fabrics that this seemed like a good job for.

The directions say to pre-heat your oven to 185F, but I had to cope with 200F.

Place pre cut fabric on cookie sheet.

Sprinkle evenly and lightly with grated beeswax.  You don’t need a lot!

Place in preheated oven.  Watch carefully!  This should take 5 minutes or less.

As soon as the beeswax is just melted, remove from oven.

Spread wax evenly with paintbrush to cover over any spots that are not yet coated.

The directions say to hang on makeshift clothes line with clothes pegs, to dry. That wasn't really much of an option for me so I laid them out dry on some foil.

They ended up pretty stiff. The author says that once cooled, you can use these wraps. I felt a bit compelled to wash mine before use to see if that loosened them up a bit.

The results after washing were not positive. The wax was piecy, uneven, and cracked. I actually considered throwing what I had left away! But that would go against my feelings about needless waste. I'll have to find another use for this fail.

Toxic Teas

I love me some tea. I've been in love with tea and the many opportunities for ceremony and ritual surrounding it ever since my mother asked me if I wanted to have a peppermint tea party with her when I was a little girl. Heck yeah I wanted to have a tea party! She brewed us a couples of cups of tea and we sat in my room enjoying it. Tea is simply magical.

There are secret dangers everywhere these days and unless you actually go looking for them you have a great chance on missing out on what could prove to be useful information. Looking for trouble sounds crazy and exhausting. I look at it this way - if you're reading this blog then it's likely you're interested in these hidden dangers and I'm happy to share whatever I've learned with you.

The subject of toxins in tea was just one of those thoughts I had in passing and chose to revisit. Honestly, it came to me while I sat watching The Backyardigans with my daughter. I let my mind wander and suddenly found myself wondering - are there hidden toxins in tea? It wasn't a search that took much digging to find an answer to my question, and that answer was a resounding yes.

Many tea bags are produced using a nasty chemical used in the production of plastics and insecticides. When this chemical, epichlorohydrin, comes in contact with water, it hydrolyzes into a carcinogen. In a world where we are trying so hard to rid our homes and bodies of endocrine disruptors we sit down with a nice, hot, cup of cellular metabolic process disruptors.

But wait there's more! (I'm so so sorry . . . )

Tea bags are also usually bleached (that's how most of our household items [examples: toilet paper, baby wipes] get that lovely white color. The edges of these bleached bags are also sealed using MORE CHEMICALS!

After these tea bags have been made with epichlorohyrin, bleached, and heat sealed with chemicals; the bags are "wet strengthened" using additional chemicals making sure that the bag doesn't fall apart upon impact with your hot water.

How can you avoid these pitfalls? Check labels. Some teas are made with chemical free bags. Look for "chemical free" or "bleach free" and I should think any company side-stepping a clear answer about if their products are exposed to these things or not should be side-stepped when it comes to your next cup of tea.

Tea companies I found to be free of epichlorohydrin
Twinings (uses a thin layer of polypropylene plastic to seal the tea bags)

Tea companies best to avoid on this issue
Celestial Seasonings
Stash
Bigelow (contain polyamine-epichlorohydrin resins)
Yogi (contain polyamine-epichlorohydrin resins)
Numi (provided an inconclusive response when questioned)
Lipton
Ahmad (will not respond)
Salada (will not respond)
Tazo (will not respond)
Harney & Sons Fine Teas (will not respond)
Ginar (will not respond)
Red Rose
Tetley

Alternative options
Loose tea
Bag your own tea

Related reading
The Truth: About Tea Bags
Twinings FAQ
Bleach in teabags - health risks
Bleached tea bags
Yahoo! Answers
Green Tea May Fight Cancer But The Tea Bags Might Cause It
List of Epichlorohydrin Free Tea Products
How To Tell if Epichlorohydrin Is In Your Tea

Wordless Wasteful Wednesday - Starbucks Garbage

http://flickriver.com/photos/carolyncoles/2139127584/

Etsy Trade Tuesday - Love For Earth

Living in Columbus has definitely been an experience. Columbus has a bohemian aspect similar to my native Fredericksburg, Virginia; but here I noticed that a lot of people do trades. I've known small local business owners to trade wares for services or goods from others. I've seen these trades fail but more often I see them become great successes for the involved parties. Having recently lost the Etsy shop I spent the last six years of my life working on, I now have stock that I don't have too much use for, in fact, it's taking up quite a bit of space. Another recent life change for my family and I has been our choice to increase our green actions. This has left me with a renewed love for green products, in this case re-usable sandwich/snack bags. I didn't have enough Tupperware containers to cover a weeks worth of packed lunches for my husband and found myself using DUN DUN DUUNNNNNNNN . . . ZIPLOCK BAGGIES! Enter, the reusable sandwich bag. Despite my general annoyance for how Etsy handled the harassment that lead to the close of my shop my love of handmade, particularly hand-made in the USA, has kept me continuously perusing Etsy. Yes, you can easily find an online tutorial to make your own sandwich bags and if you don't like the ones you find, I'm certain people out there have patterns you can pay for. Having a 16 month old doesn't leave me with a lot of time to sew (a problem only made worse by my Pintrest obsession that only adds to the list of things to knit or sew). My current living situation hasn't left me with enough space to set up my own sewing machine here at the house so I drive over to my husbands grandmother's house and use hers. Enter the wonderful Kara K. of Love for Earth on Etsy, added bonus - she lives in my home state!

Kara enjoys making unique, custom, eco-friendly bags and it really shows through in her work. We agreed upon a trade and when the two of us set to work fulfilling our ends of the bargain. Not only did I get an insulated snack/sandwich bag but she made me a custom bag as well! I told her my woes of forever having my hands full and my usual inability to juggle two giant Jersey Mikes subs. Jersey Mikes subs don't come with bags with handles. After discussing the length of a giant sub from Jersey Mikes (15") and determining what the width of two of them should be, she created a special, insulated,

Jersey Mikes sub carry bag

- WITH STRAP!

I luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurv it! The quality is out of this world! About a week later my other bag came (she too was excited about our arrangement and forgot to send the other bag) and it too was wonderful. It even came in recycled packaging!

Tell Kara your reusable bag woes and you'll be sure to walk away with a custom creation that you'll love.