Going Green: Paper, Plastic or Foil?

By Jim Bona

I was making some sandwiches for a road trip the other day and I had to decide how I was going to wrap them up. I had on hand: saran wrap, plastic sandwich bags, aluminum foil and wax paper. A very simple decision with various levels of environmental impact. What to do?

First question would be: is this going to be a repeatable event? If so, then I would use a Tupperware sized for sandwiches, which could be reused hundreds, if not thousands of time. (This would be accepting full well that this choice involves the use of petrochemicals, which may or may not be the best choice.) This is the perfect solution for the person in the home that is making the school lunches for the students of the house, or for the student, themselves, if they are the one making their own sandwiches. If it was a one-time use, which of the above mentioned wraps would be the way to go?

Without hesitation, the wax paper is the way to go. This choice, too, involves petrochemicals, but not as much as the other options. (You could go to a health food store and find wax paper made from paraffin, which would contain no petrochemicals, but I am sure it is probably a bit more expensive.) Plastic saran wrap, plastic sandwich bags and even tin foil could be reused a number of times to make that choice more earth friendly, if you don’t want to go the wax paper route.

If you want to go really old school, you could always just use a cloth napkin to wrap your sandwich. This would work best with rolls and bread that has a crust on them. White bread would dry out some, making the sandwich as if it was toasted without using the toaster, or having the color either. However you decide to wrap up your sandwich, the choice should try to be as earth friendly as possible. (Oh, and don’t forget that the days of the paper sandwich bag are over, unless you can reuse the same bag a bunch of times. A soft cloth bag – or even nylon- or even the old metal lunchbox is much better.)

Please also remember to recycle your sandwich wrappings when you are finished reusing them numerous times.

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Going Green: Paper, Plastic or Foil?

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