Sunday, April 11, 2010

Slow and steady wins the race

It's kind of funny that one of the things I'm most passionate about rarely makes it onto my blog. I don't often post about environmental issues and I should more often. Now, you're probably looking at the picture and wondering how in the world these canisters have anything to do with the environment. Well one of my goals right now is to bring home fewer things that either need to be thrown away or recycled. The Reduce part of Reduce, Reuse Recycle. Which quite honestly is the hardest one to do. For pantry staples such as oatmeal, sugar, flour, salt and brown sugar I shop in the Whole Foods bulk section. This is one of the few places in Whole Foods where it's not incredibly expensive. I also love it because if I only need a handful of pine nuts for a recipe, I can buy just a handful rather than a whole bag, which gets expensive. You can also buy spices by the teaspoon if you like. No more jars of weird spices sitting around that you've had for years! I try to reuse the plastic bags for these bulk items so that I'm not creating any waste buy purchasing them! There is no need for the box or bag the items come in because I have a container to keep them in when they come home. That is how these pretty canisters help the environment.
They are from Ikea and are very reasonably priced. There is at least one other size I can think of, it's taller and skinny, probably for things like spaghetti.  They do have other styles as well if you'd like something more streamlined. You may say to yourself, "I'll just go get some plastic ones from Bed Bath and Beyond but I'd have to say that glass is better for you and for the environment, and you can't beat the price tag of these!

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