10 Easy Ways to Reduce Plastic in Your Kitchen

It wasn’t an article or a documentary that got me thinking about plastic. It was the cabinet under the sink — the one where the plastic bags lived, stuffed into other plastic bags, multiplying somehow faster than we were bringing them in. Every time I opened it something fell out. It was its own small disaster, twice a day.

We cook at home almost every day. That means a lot of produce, a lot of ingredients, a lot of trips to the market. And somehow, without really noticing, we had accumulated a staggering amount of single-use plastic. Bags, wrap, containers — all used once and thrown away.

We didn’t fix it all at once. What follows is roughly the order we made the changes, which also turned out to be roughly the order of what made the biggest difference.

1. Reusable bags for the market

This was the first one. We go through a lot of produce — bell peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, plantains, avocados. Every single item was going into its own little plastic bag. We switched to mesh produce bags and honestly haven’t thought about it since. They weigh nothing, the cashier can see right through them, and they’ve been through the wash hundreds of times.

2. Beeswax wrap instead of plastic wrap

We use a lot of leftovers in our house. Half an avocado, leftover rice, a piece of cheese. We were going through plastic wrap constantly. Beeswax wrap took about two days to get used to — you warm it with your hands and it molds around anything. Now we wouldn’t go back. One note: don’t use it for raw meat. For that, we use a plate or a glass container.

3. Glass containers for leftovers

In a family that cooks as much as we do, leftovers are not optional — they’re the plan. We slowly replaced our plastic containers with glass ones. The food keeps better, they go straight from the fridge to the microwave, and they look nicer when you open the fridge. It took a few months to replace everything, but we just swapped them out as the old plastic ones wore out.

4. Silicone bags instead of ziplocks

We still use these for marinating meat, storing cut fruit for the kids’ lunches, freezing portions of sofrito. The silicone ones go in the dishwasher and have lasted years. We bought one set and never bought ziplock bags again.

5. A real shopping tote at every exit point

This sounds obvious but the reason we kept using plastic bags was simple: we forgot the reusable ones. The fix was just putting a tote bag at every place we leave the house from — the front door, the car, my wife’s handbag. Now we always have one.

6. A reusable water bottle per person

This one paid for itself in about two weeks. We stopped buying plastic water bottles entirely. Each person in the house has their own bottle. The kids decorated theirs with stickers. That was years ago and we still use the same ones.

7. Bar soap instead of liquid soap in plastic bottles

We go through a lot of hand soap in a family with kids. Switching to bar soap cut our plastic use noticeably. The bars actually last longer than the bottles too.

8. Buying dry goods in bulk

We started buying rice, beans, lentils, and dried chiles from bulk sections when we can find them, bringing our own containers. Not always possible, but when it is, it’s better in every way — less packaging, usually cheaper, and fresher.

9. Paper straws or no straws at all

Our kids went through a phase of wanting straws for everything. We bought a set of stainless steel straws with a little cleaning brush. They love them and we’ve never bought disposable straws since.

10. Stop buying bin liners for small bins

This one sounds weird but hear me out. We were buying small plastic bin liners for the bathroom and bedroom bins — plastic, used once, thrown away. Now we just empty those small bins directly into the main bin. That’s it. No liner needed.