The surplus of homemade baked goods is one of best parts of December, as long as nothing is going to waste, and everything is purchased without single-use plastic. Over the last year, ZWC has posted many guides to zero waste shopping, but if you’re in a pinch, here are the basics:
1.) Find a bulk food store, if it’s far away, buy enough to make it last and make the trip worth while. If this isn’t possible, try to find baked ingredients packaged in paper instead of plastic whenever possible. Paper can be composted.
2.) Bring your own reusable totes for bulk food items, tare the weight before filling, and mark it on the bag for the cashier. Additionally, make sure to bring enough reusable grocery bags to avoid needing and plastic or paper bags at the counter.
3.) Store your items in containers you have reused from old peanut butter jars to large pickle jars, or buy your jars second hand. Thrift stores almost always have good quality glass jars for sale at decent prices.
use cloth totes instead of plastic!
Recipes:
Family recipes can be very personal, and we wouldn’t dare ask you to share unless you were willing! But we have a growing list of RECIPES we’ve been working on over the last year that have ingredients that are hopefully easy to find in bulk or other packaging that is more sustainable that single-use plastic.
We also came up with two guides for some serious zero waste problem areas, food coloring and frosting:
Natural Food Coloring Guide
2-Ingredient Cookie Frosting
When it comes to wrapping up those yummies:
Natural fabrics make the most elegant packaging!
Photo Source: http://www.woodsandweaves.com/
Gift Wrapping:
Here’s a guide to zero waste gift wrapping:
And lastly, just for funsies….
Here’s an easy and fun tutorial on how to make a beautiful Kiwi Christmas tree:
Zero Waste California 