As you probably know, I’m trying to add zero-waste ideas into our life #insteading of buying new. Repurposing and reusing is beneficial and that is my theme for this little project.

We all make choices about the food we consume. On the one hand I want to be environmentally conscientious (grow our own, support local farmers) and on the other I need to get our family of 6 fed in a healthy and feasible way. My hope is that I can balance it out in other eco-friendly choices because I want to occasionally purchasing out of country produce.

Buying in bulk is very normal practice for me as the head household cook & dishwasher. I do it as often as possible because it’s financially beneficial but also because it helps to ensure that we have an ample supply of food in our household. World wide natural disasters strike without much warning, and living in an earthquake zone it would be foolish for us to not be at least partially prepared to take care of ourselves during an event.

A lot of bulk produce that I purchase comes in plastic mesh bags. These mesh bags are useful for a lot of things. I generally keep a stash of them rather than discarding. They can be made into produce shopping bags, used to hang and dry small items, to make kids basket ball hoops and the creative list goes on. My most frequent use for these produce mesh bags is to make butterfly scrubbies. They work wonderfully to clean dishes and also in the workshop for various cleaning, and even staining, projects.

To make a butterfly scrub I start with one mesh bag and cut off any tags or metal end pieces. I try to tuck all of the loose ends into the centre of a ball and then fold in half and in half until the ball of mesh is firm. Take a second mesh bag and wrap the first, tucking the loose ends under the folds. Once I have a comfortable size of mesh ball I secure it with an elastic (saved from other purchased produce items, the thick broccoli elastic bands are particularly useful). The trick is to do a double twist after the first elastic loop, so that the elastic will stay secure when you cross it in front.

I prefer a smaller size scrubbie. The store bought scrubbies are too large and awkward to get into tight pan corners imo. I love the whimsical look of the “butterfly” created by the the double twisted elastic. This size of butterfly scrubby is particularly great to use in my solid bar dish soap containers.

Last week I upcycled some thrifted shallow jars into dish soap dispensers. I filled them with a vegan, plant-based soap recipe that I developed to clean greasy dishes yet stay gentle on our hands. Using coconut, olive, citrus essential oils and citric acid this soap has a lovely long lasting lather that cleans easily, with no sticky residue, but doesn’t have a lot of bubbles like a liquid dish detergent does. All of my soap recipes are recorded and use Health Canada approved ingredients.

I hope you enjoyed this little note about how to re-use mesh bags in our daily lives. If you already have a plastic scrubbie, once it starts to wear and unravel, you can wrap it with one of your mesh bags and an elastic to give it a second and third life! Cheers, Lynda

#insteading – a lifestyle where one actively choses to grow, nurture, upcycle and beautify their surroundings with available materials instead of purchasing new.