Low Impact: Reducing Trash

Day six of No Impact Week is give back day. We’re supposed to clean up trash in public places or perform some other community service. The only community service I can perform without driving several miles is to write about trash reduction, which I missed writing about on Monday. I hope this counts.

We ate one of the locally produced bratwurst for supper last night. It was delicious and very tender. A great side benefit was the packaging, a piece of white butcher’s paper. No Styrofoam tray. No plastic wrap, just a piece of paper. Eating local pork and beef will greatly reduce our contribution to the Douglas County landfill.

At the start of this week I vowed to start making my own crackers instead of buying commercial ones. The excessive packaging of store-bought crackers has always dismayed me. I love Back to Nature crackers, but they come in a plastic tray inside a plastic bag inside a sturdy cardboard box.

Today I made a batch of whole-wheat sesame crackers. I spent not more than ten minutes mixing the dough and rolling it out to 1/8-inch thickness. Instead of cutting the dough into pieces on the pastry cloth I lifted it onto a cookie sheet and used a pastry wheel to make individual crackers.

The raggedy edges may bother some people, but not me. The end result looks fine and the raggedy edges I sampled are just as good as Back to Nature crackers. What’s more, homemade crackers are very economical. A box of Back to Nature costs not less than $3.50 and weighs just four ounces. My crackers weighed in at ten ounces, making them worth $8.75. I don’t know the ingredient and oven heating costs, but it couldn’t have been more than $1.

Here’s the recipe. Maybe you can figure the cost.

Whole Wheat - Sesame Crackers

1½ cups whole wheat flour

¼ cup soy flour

¼ cup sesame seeds

½ t. salt

¼ cup oil

½ cup cold water

Add oil to dry ingredients, then water, enough to make pie dough consistency. Mix well. Roll to 1/8-inch thickness. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Prick with a fork and cut in diamonds or squares with pizza cutter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

I’ve always known that homemade is better and more economical than commercially produced food, but now I realize its additional advantage of significant trash reduction.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer