THE BIG GREEN SWAP
In the first in a new series, sustainability writer Rae Ritchie tells us the easy switches you can make to household purchases that will help save the planet...
BEST FOR VEGANS
Waxyz wraps are made from organic cotton and treated by specialists in Scotland who use a traditional waxing method that doesn’t involved beeswax. This means that, unlike many other wraps, its range is suitable for vegans. Available from independent retailers and bplasticfree.com, with prices starting at £2.60.
BEST FOR VERSATILITY
As well as sheets, The Beeswax Wrap Co offers a one-metre roll that you can cut to your own requirements, as you would with clingfilm. The eagle-eyed may have spotted something similar on the BBC’s Shop Well For The Planet? last week. £22, beeswaxwraps.co.uk
YOU wrap food in it. Mark Addy wrapped himself in it while eating Mars Bars in his shed in The Fully Monty. What else is there to know about clingfilm? It is plastic, typically low-density polyethylene (LDPE) or linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE).
It is also single use – and far less widely accepted for recycling than other common single-use plastic products, such as drinks bottles.
You can stick clingfilm in the soft plastics recycling collections recently introduced by supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and the Co-op – but given that Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, should be followed in that order, it is more sustainable to avoid it in the first place.
Replacements include food storage containers and aluminium foil, although that is still single use. Wax wraps are a reusable alternative. These self-adhesive, malleable sheets work like wrapping paper and come in a range of sizes, albeit probably not large enough for Mark Addy.
BEST FOR GIFTING
Best known for crockery, Emma Bridgewater’s distinctive designs are also available on a collection of reusable wraps. Made from locally sourced British beeswax and organic cotton, they’re pretty enough to give as a gift. You can’t say that about a box of clingfilm. From £16 at emmabridgewater.co.uk.