Casing out the Condiments

In the second installment of the Grocery Plastics Tour I move on to the condiments aisle, looking particularly for mustard sold in glass jars.

Here is the mustard section. I scan the shelves.

I see twenty-nine different kinds of mustard, including each of the different flavors offered by the same company. Of these, only one kind is in a glass jar, Grey Poupon, an import from France, is, of course, the most expensive. Otherwise the shelves are filled with plastic, plastic, plastic, and more plastic.  

Next to the mustard is the array of plastic bottles of ketchup. There's no use looking here.The old glass bottle of ketchup has been extinct for years.

Moving on to mayonnaise and its kin I find no glass whatsoever.

How about the vinegar section?

Nope.  Nada.

Okay, but maybe the salad dressings will have a glass bottle or two.

Ah, at last, amongst the forest of plastic, I find four flavors of Brianna’s salad dressing in glass bottles on the top shelf, far left.

When the squeeze bottles are almost empty, I throw them away, because the last can’t be squeezed out. I used to enjoy adding a bit of water and getting the last dregs of catsup to pour out. That just doesn’t work with plastic squeeze bottles, so what can I do? I can toss the bottles in the trash or recycling, which creates more problems. Either the enormous landfill gets another plastic bottles that won’t decompose for hundreds of years, or I send the bottle to some third-world country to be made into something else. That, too, is problematic. But I’ll save the facts and my thoughts on that on another day.

For today, it’s enough to have observed the plethora of plastic in the grocery store condiments aisle.

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer