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I’ve tried for years to find more sustainable kitchen storage solutions, but like many well-intentioned fresh starts (think New Year’s resolutions to take long walks in the cold, vows to eat a bunch of vegetables every day), my attempts often ended with me sighing with defeat in the Ziploc aisle at the grocery store. I had, in fact, given up on replacing the single-use containers and wraps in my kitchen with reusable options. There was simply no getting around it. Glass Dropper Bottles With Plastic Droppers
I have this friend, we’ll call her Alice, who is one of those people who carries a collapsible mug and a set of cutlery with her at all times. Her dedication to the cause of keeping single-use items out of her life borders on religious. Alice dehydrates her citrus peels and turns every scrap into stock. She politely declines all plastic bags, straws, and utensils. She is almost a little too good at the zero waste lifestyle in the way that the wives of Stepford, Connecticut were a little too good at mixing cocktails for their husbands.
Like the heroine of Ira Levin’s novel, I believed I could never be as perfect as Alice. I was too frantically busy doing things that were more important than lovingly wrapping leftover meatloaf in silicone. I had a hodgepodge of reusable-ish containers in my cabinets: mostly pilfered Rubbermaid containers and restaurant-issue plastic quarts and pints that were well past their prime. At some point I had acquired a few beeswax wraps and promptly forgotten about them.
Then I saw W&P’s Clean Kitchen Storage set, and I thought it might be time to try again. It was a combination of vanity and convenience that convinced me. The 20-piece set included a dupe for just about everything I typically used: soft-touch silicone and glass containers in 16- and 24-oz. sizes, see-through resealable bags (also in multiple sizes), and a set of six stretchy lids and three silicone wraps. I could ditch my random assortment of containers and start completely fresh instead of adding a glass bowl here and a silicone bag there. Everything in the set could be tossed in the dishwasher. Plus, the whole set came in an aesthetically pleasing blush colorway that looked like it belonged in the kitchen of someone who didn’t have over a thousand unread emails in their inbox.
Any time I’ve bought a set of flimsy food storage containers in the past, they tended to disappear pretty quickly. I’d send a friend home with leftover cobbler or bring a side dish to a dinner party and never see my container again. But the W&P set arrived at my house six months ago, and it’s still fully intact. I chalk this up to the fact that these containers seem so, well, nice. I’ve lent out the seal-tight glass containers a few times, and they always find their way back to my kitchen. I get it: I have no problem quietly stealing something made of plastic, but glass and blush-colored silicone? That’s another story entirely.
It started slow. I’d put away leftovers in the glass containers or toss too-ripe berries in one of the stand-up bags and put it in the freezer for future smoothies. Then I tested out the stretchy lids. One of the reasons I thought I could never give up plastic wrap is the fact that I make a lot of yeasted breads. The stretchy lids fit all of my prep bowls and had a tight seal that was so leakproof I could use them to store soups and sauces without risking spills.
Reusable Stretch Lids, Round Set
The product I was most suspicious of was the set of wraps. I’ve typically found reusable wraps to be unwieldy and hard to clean. More importantly, they often stuck only to themselves and not to whatever I wanted to wrap or seal. I’ll be the first to admit that I was wrong about these. They were just as good as clingfilm at covering plates or wrapping pastry dough, and they were easy enough to clean with warm, soapy water. They did require a bit of rearranging on my dish rack so I could set them up to hang-dry, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.
Of all the attempts I’ve made at sticking to an eco-friendly food storage system, this has been the most successful. I’m still not as virtuous as my friend Alice. I do keep a roll of plastic wrap in my kitchen for emergencies (or those times when my W&P wraps are all hang-drying at the same time), and I am prone to stealing my neighbor’s Tupperware for weeks at a time. But that, I’m convinced, is an emotional thing rather than a practical one. Because I have not only managed to hold on to (and use!) the entire 20-piece set I started with, I’ve actually added a few things to my arsenal. I bought an additional four-pack of glass bowls as well as the brand’s lightweight, leak-proof plastic lunch bowl.
And I have my eye on their stackable freezer cubes. Now that my fridge looks like less of a mess, I’m ready to tackle my freezer next.
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