Selfsufficientish.com

Warm Greetings!

My wife Tiffany asked that I post this question for her.

She wishes to know which uses more energy. Using plastic zip lock bags to take her lunch in, or the hot tap water to wash a glass reusable container made for storing food in.

We have already discussed the aspect of the zip lock bags filling up the landfill, so we are just looking at the production side.

Blessings!
Geary

I've asked myself this question many times - especially as my kids take packed lunches to school. So I've bought them a lunch bag that keeps their food cool, I re-use plastic drinks bottles and I re-use things like bread bags to wrap food in. I've also started to use foil instead of cling film, as it can be re-used as a pan scrubber!! My next venture is to buy paper bags to wrap their food in so at least the dry ones can go in the recycling and those that can't will bio-degrade.
I'd say the main difference between the zip lock bag and the glass container is that although both are re-useable, the bag can only be used a few times in comparison to a glass container - which in itself is recyclable. I guess the thing with the hot water is - you have to wash your dishes anyway so you'll be heating the water to do that rather than heating water especially to wash a single container. Then of course there's the debate about how you heat your water!!!
That probably doesn't answer your question directly - but its food for thought!

why use a bag at all?

I use plastic food boxes, wash and reuse for years!

Glass containers are heavy and breakable, so although they maybe more environmentally friendly they are potential hazard

I go with using plastic lunch boxes too and washing them out. I would prefer to reuse anything and wash it than to use something that has to be replaced. You could use old Ice cream tubs, big margarine tubs or anything like that. OR indeed reuse plastic bags - bread bags, bags that vegetables come in.

As for cling film, that is a source of argument in our house I prefer to use a bread bag an elastic band or an old cottage cheese pot. If you are just planning to keep food fresh for longer in the fridge as long as it is an air tight container then you can use pretty much anything, just wash it up again and again.

Tin foil can be recycled around here, but I try to use it very sparingly as it still needs to be made in the first place.

I would have thought washing the dish better

but agree with others.. himself takes a pack lunch either in an old bread bag, or in a plastic box, with no other wrapping.

plastic box with stuff in it ... and it comes home unwashed and get washed up with all the other washing up in the sink ... I only wash up when there is a sink full or more ...

I agree Andy, an ice cream plastic tub or a marg tub for adults is ideal and no out lay for a separate box either.

I'd go with the reusable container, just washed along with everything else as suggested above, it works for me. It's an interesting question though, I was surprised to find out that plastic milk containers can actually be more energy efficient than milk bottles. The answers to these questions aren't always entirely obvious.

revdode wrote:I was surprised to find out that plastic milk containers can actually be more energy efficient than milk bottles. The answers to these questions aren't always entirely obvious.

Yes, but it's not just about energy efficiency - it's also about the resources consumed and then disposed of either as waste or sent for recycling.

A plastic bottle may be lighter (and therefore transported at less cost in resource terms) but if it ends up in land fill, it's very much a waste of the resources used to make it (petrochemicals for the plastics, energy etc). If it's recycled, then the lightness is still an advantage over glass but you still have the energy consumption in the recycling process. (And if it's among the plastics being shipped to China, that can be fairly large.)

A glass bottle that's reused dozens of times on the other hand is not a one-shot use (re-use is generally better than recycling), even at the end of its life can be used to make more glass, and glass is not using up an increasingly scarce energy resource as plastic does (sand v oil, and yes, I know sand mining is an issue).

On the negative side, glass is heavy and more fragile so more resources are needed to transport it, while resources are needed to clean and sterilise it before re-use. (But renewable energy sources powering bottling plants combined with efficient re-use of water and detergents could go a long way to reducing the demand on those resources.)

Personally, I'd prefer re-usable glass bottle over plastic for things like milk and drinks, but long-term re-useable food-grade plastic tubs for home food storage. And the sooner a bio-plastic is developted that can replace petrochemical plastic in those re-useable tubs the better.

Oh, and as for the hot water to clean the tubs at home? Put in solar hot water - that's what we've done.

another point to bear in mind in favour of glass is that it doesn't leach toxic chemicals into the contents, unlike many plastics.........I seem to remember that some plastics give off pseudo oestrogens, and all sorts of chemical pollutants