The Production Method of Beeswax Packaging
I was giving the daughter a slice of cake to take away, wrapped in plastic, even though the world is drowning in the stuff, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be lovely if there was something to wrap my food in that didn’t leak and wasn’t wrecking the planet?”
And there is. Bee’s Wrap – made of cloth, beeswax and tree resin, washable in soap and cold water, reusable and sealed by the warmth of your hands.
Doesn’t that sound perfect? Until you see the price – $15 (£11.60) a sheet for a “baguette wrap”, or if you just eat the more common sandwich there’s a $10 (£7.70) wrap for that too, with a button and loop to help do it up.
For a family of four, that’s over £30 just for wrapping your packed sandwiches, enough to buy 22 rolls of plastic wrap from my local Budgens. Let’s hope the beeswax version lasts a long time.
It’s encouraging that Bee’s Wrap’s Vermont-based manufacturer says its aim is to get plastics out of the kitchen. It’s also a business founded and run by women, and we need more of those.
But along with so many other boutique alternatives, it also gives a rather depressing message about sustainability – that you have to be wealthy to manage it, and not only that you also have to be a helpless fluffy.
Here’s a typically condescending message from BabyCentre, the Johnson & Johnson-owned advice website for parents and pregnant women, on buying cloth nappies: “Velcro fastening, poppers or plastic clips have taken the place of pins … most modern washable nappies are shaped like disposable nappies, so you don’t need a degree in origami to fold them to the right shape.”
I can’t remember any of us stabbing our babies with pins or being unable to fold a towelling square. It wasn’t that difficult, we didn’t need them “prefolded” or in “funky” patterns, and we still don’t, particularly if these mimsy extras send the prices through the roof. One “popin” nappy with camper-van pattern costs £18.75.
And while it’s great to see businesses like Fluffy Little Pickles encouraging women to switch to sustainable sanitary products, do they really need their reusable pads to come in a “purple, green and black scale pattern” and to set them back £13 for each one?
Many of the companies and individuals marketing a sustainable lifestyle tend to give the impression that it takes place on another fairytale planet, and is unattainable for normal people down here on the ground with limited cash, who have to go to work every day.
Take this message from the instructor at DIY Natural, a website offering advice on living sustainably. She’s showing you how to make, and use, alternative food wraps yourself, from beeswax pellets and parchment paper. “I love to wrap my blocks of cheese, folding the food wrap as if I am wrapping a gift. See how nicely it holds its shape?”
At least you can make sustainable food wrapping yourself, but it helps if you have a lovely big garden, lots of time and a large kitchen table on which to work.
Green design blog Inhabitat tells us that, in Japan, fabric gift wrapping has become an art form. Which is all very lovely, but most of us don’t have time for “art forms” while cooking, mopping up and getting ready to have the family for Christmas.
Fortunately most of these luxury items could easily be swapped for simple, reusable alternatives, with ordinary names, and you can probably find them for yourself, if you just use your noddle.
Take The Tailored Home’s Unpaper Towels, a “stylish alternative” to kitchen roll comprising 12 towels of “patterned cotton fabric on your choice terry cloth and your choice of snaps” – £28.80 a pop on Etsy. It sounds like a roll of washable, reusable dishcloths to me, and you can probably buy a plain version for less in an ordinary shop.
And great that Danielle Vermeer is trying to transform the fashion industry by upcycling, but lots of us also know that we can use worn T-shirts “as cleaning rags”, even if we haven’t thought of turning them into “handmade, unique braided rugs”. And why do we need fabric gift wrap when newspaper colour supplements work just as well?
The Nappy Lady supplies simple nappies: terry squares at reasonable prices, and MuslinZ sells white muslin squares, which can be used as nappies for newborns, (on Boobalou) a pack of 12 for £13.95. There are also numerous, reasonably priced stainless steel lunch boxes, some are compartmentalised, and you won’t need any wraps at all.
So there is hope. And at least these small businesses are on the right track, unlike many irresponsible big businesses. But it would be more helpful if they directed their products, and their message, in normal, grownup language – and at all of us, not just the wealthy few.
Sign up to be a Guardian Sustainable Business member and get more stories like this direct to your inbox every week. You can also follow us on Twitter.