Want to save your food leftovers without using plastic? No problem! A small business in Vermont produces an eco-friendly food wrap made of cotton and beeswax.
Food waste has huge detrimental impacts to the environment, not just because of the water use and greenhouse gas emissions caused during the production of the food, but also because of the damaging methane that food waste creates when it ends up in landfill. So it makes sense to save that half eaten apple or that piece of cheese to eat later, rather than just throwing it in the garbage. But if you’re reaching for plastic wrap to package your leftovers, you might be contributing to another problem. Plastic is made of non-renewable resources and it usually ends up in landfills or oceans, where it endangers terrestrial and aquatic animals.
Preserving Food Without Harming the Environment
Sarah Kaeck, a mother of three from Vermont, has found a way to preserve food without compromising her family’s health or damaging the environment. The entrepreneur lives in the countryside in Vermont, where she grows her own food and raises sheep and chickens. She came up with the idea of infusing cotton cloths with beeswax, jojoba oil and resin to transform them into food wrap. And thus Bee’s Wrap was created.
© The wraps can be moulded by the warmth of your hands, and when it cools it holds its shape and seals.The colourful cloths are made of organic cotton and infused with organic ingredients, making them both safe for consumers and good for the environment. The beeswax hardens the cotton cloth, allowing it to hold shapes, while the warmth from a person’s hands is enough to make it soft enough to be moulded and folded into different shapes.
Bee’s Wrap can be used just like typical cling film: wrapped around a half-eaten fruit or a sandwich, stretched over a bowl to cover salad, etc. The cloths can be cleaned with soap and cold water. They are available in different sizes and prints. Some special sandwich wraps also come with a string to keep them tightly shut.
Join the Hive
The eco-friendly wraps can be purchased online or from one of the many stores carrying them. Prices online range from 6 USD for the smallest wrap to 42 USD for a variety pack containing 7 wraps of different sizes.
This might seem a tad expensive at first, but one could argue that it pays off in the long term to invest in a few wraps rather than constantly buying new rolls of plastic wrap. Nonetheless, if you want to get your hands on this food wrap without breaking the bank, it is also possible to make your own beeswax cotton wraps.
You can watch Bee’s Wrap story in the video below:
