November 20th's Tip
Glass food storage: Storing the food in your refrigerator in glass may seem like a tiny step, but it helps in a number of ways. First, the most obvious - less plastic. You're using less plastic, but you're also avoiding the leeching of chemicals into your food that plastic storage containers have become well known for.
Glass containers will almost certainly cost you less in the long run. The up front extra cost may discourage, but if you consider how much longer your glass storage will last you than plastic storage would, it seems silly to ignore.
Less obvious - glass keeps your food colder longer. If the food in the fridge is more easily maintained at a cool temperature, your fridge will be doing less work, and wasting less energy.
Tiny step... not so tiny payoff.
Contribute
We are looking for reader submitted tips for Eco-Friendly Friday so we can share some even we may have not heard before. If you've got a unique or informative tip and want to contribute to Eco-Friendly Friday, shoot us an email. Be sure to include your URL if you want a link to your site included with your tip!
November 20th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I knew about the first couple of benefits, but I never thought about how good glass could be at helping your fridge to work less hard! This is a great tip - and it's sooo true that plastic containers don't last nearly as long as glass.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I like buying groceries in different sized glass containers, so I can reuse them when the food is gone. I'm slowly building a nice collection.
I'm also afraid of plastics leeching, particularly with hot food, so I never put anything more than lukewarm in my tupperware.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Me either Ruth... I would have never thought about how much glass containers coould actually save.. especially in more ways than one. Never crossed my mind that the fridge would have to do less work since the glass keeps the food colder longer.
November 21st, 2009 at 1:49 am
Another big plus to glass is if you use a microwave to warm up the food you won't get the terrible toxins leaching from the plastic which are released more abundantly when it is heated. Plus for the truly health conscious who have done away with their microwaves you can put the glass container right into the oven - not such a good idea with a plastic container.
November 21st, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Great tip! I've been using glass to store just about everything. My freezer is full of glass mason jars filled with raw organic nuts, seeds, raw cookies, etc.
Cheers,
Kristen
November 22nd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Thanks for the great tip.
As an added bonus, food and drink usually tastes better when it comes from a glass container!
November 24th, 2009 at 8:31 am
I use glass jars only to store flour, sugar, coffee..etc. , but not in the freezer. I didn't know that glass containers can have so many qualities.