Glad your new school "year" is going wellmrscoyote said:
Any tips for others on the plastic war? We've been on the same track for about 6 years now, but there are still so many things you can't easily buy in bulk (like cheese) that come in plastic packaging, so it is a constant struggle. We use jars and Pyrex for most of our pantry and fridge food storage, but some containers have plastic lids and I like the plastic storage lids for mason jars because they are easier to use than the two-part lids once something is opened (can't win 'em all I guess!) plus I have lots of the old school Pyrex with glass lids. We reuse glass bottles for drinks (e.g. in the car on long trips we load up the cooler with bottles we fill with water or juice) and each of us has a stainless steel water bottle to carry with us on a daily basis for school and work.
The cloth thing was actually a no-brainer in our household--haven't bought napkins or paper towels (except for camping) in nearly 10 years. My hubs is pretty hard on his undershirts (wears one daily under his button-up work shirts so he can wear the shirts more than once before washing and ironing) so we have no lack for rags to use in place of paper towels. For napkins, we have a ton of mismatched home made flowered print napkins (don't show stains!) and we tend to leave them at our place at the kitchen table if they're not too soiled to use again for the next meal. We still use TP, but my girls and I have been using home made cloth pads for years (they've never used disposables, I can't remember when I made mine but they are still going strong
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