Soapbox By Kay

Plastic Mitigation

I’ve cleaned out the cabinets of most of the plastic foodware. I’m ordering a glass cookie jar for Mom and a ceramic coffee jar, both to replace the I-don’t-know-how-many-years-old Rubbermaid canisters. The sugar and brown sugar that have been in the smaller canisters is just going down the sink and their canisters won’t be replaced, at least not immediately, because I can’t remember the last time I used either one. I have quite a collection of Mason jars that the rice can be stored in. Operation Plastic Purge is well underway.

Unfortunately, I’m having problems in a couple of areas. One is that a great deal of our food products that used to come in glass now are packaged in plastic. The entire condiment aisle used to be glass jars and bottles, but now ketchup, mayo, salad dressing – all plastic. The only jars in our fridge that are consistently glass are those holding jam or relish. I think I’ll be able to find a version of most things offered in glass, except when I get to the dairy case. Yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, cheese – all in plastic of some kind. I’ve been thinking that perhaps the way to deal with that is to put that stuff into glass containers as soon after I purchase it as possible. Mitigation, if not elimination.

But I haven’t yet been able to figure out  this thing:

Not only does it have a plastic reservoir into which we pour cold water for it to sit for hours overnight, but it also has a plastic filter bowl, over which very hot water pours as the coffee is made. As best I can tell, there are few, if any, automatic coffee makers without plastic innards. When I surfed for “plastic-free coffee pots”, I got pictures of large and small manual types – old-fashioned drip pots, stove-top percolators, very cute single-serving ceramic drip cups, sleek glass coffee presses – but nothing that would allow me to set up coffee to be ready for my mother on the days she gets up an hour or more earlier than I do.

This sleek fellow calls himself stainless, but I see plastic across the bottom and the details don’t tell me if the insides are also stainless.

This one appears to be all-steel construction, probably because plastic would not withstand the heat of percolation, but alas, it is not programmable. It might work for us if it has a time-off switch, which is actually the main reason we bought a programmable one in the first place, after I came home and found that Mother had poured herself the last cup of coffee and then left the burner on the entire day. If it will turn itself off, then I could set it up the night before so all she’d have to do would be to hit the “on” switch. Of course, she’d also have to be able to lift the pot to pour it, and it looks like it might be a little heavy.

I guess until we get a new one, I’ll continue to make coffee in our almost-totally-plastic coffee maker. And worry about it.