Change the world Wednesday – week 4

I’m loving these Change the World Wednesday challenges! Each week, over on Reduce Footprints, we’re set a challenge that will enable us to be a little more eco friendly.

This week we need to look at our plastic wrap / aluminium clingfilm and foil usage.

Now I’m pretty good on this – I don’t use any clingfilm at all, and for foil, I use one sheet on the grill pan which lasts a couple of months and is recycled after use.

My downfall is that every week I do some baking for a friend and I often put it into a plastic bag for her because it’s quick and convenient.

I used to be really good at reusing packaging, but lately I’ve automatically been reaching for a new plastic bag if I can’t find anything else lying around.

This week then, my challenge will be to find a more environmentally friendly way to packing up the baking I do. I’ll be scouring my home for any previously used packaging I can reuse or seeing if I can find some recycled greaseproof paper – at least that can be composted after use.

Here are some of the things I do which mean I no longer buy clingfilm:

• When storing things in the fridge I put them in a dish with a plate or saucer over the top
• Laptop lunchboxes are ideal for taking packed lunches to school without the need for clingfilm
• I reuse paper bags from my vegetable box or the plastic ones from the store
• The Wrap ‘n’ mat is a reusable sandwich wrap which doubles up as a table cloth
• I used to have a stash of old packaging to reuse such as old bread bags, the inners from boxes of cereal and old frozen vegetable bags

What about you – do you use a lot of clingfilm or aluminium foil? Could you go without using any for a week? Leave a comment and let me know!