In an effort to rid ourselves of the excess "junk" in our lives, I have relegated our spare plastic glasses to the "find a new home" bin. I had tonnes of them when I ran a home daycare - I always had four or five kids at mealtimes, plus whatever portion of the neighbourhood that happened to come over to play.
I no longer run the daycare, and many of the extra items I had, I have found another home for. I didn't realize how much I used those extra glasses, though, until I realized that I had 5 small glass drinking glasses. 5 small glasses are not enough for my family. Although I use the one glass a day rule, I find it very difficult to keep track of my kids' drinking glasses, especially now that they are all clear glass. I tend to fill a glass for them at each meal.
I invested in some small glass drinking glasses from IKEA. They are ideal for my children - small and cheap. If one breaks, no big deal. I realize that I have replaced the plastic glasses with glass glasses, so I am no further ahead with respect to the amount of "stuff" in our lives. However, the dubious nature of the cheap plastic glasses is enough for me to want to switch over.
after having to clean up the glass when one of our grandgirls accidentally dropped hers on our tile floor, I went out and found some BPA free plastic glasses to keep on hand. The only other alternative to plastic and glass I could think of is those metal glasses and I always hated those!
ReplyDeleteI know - I dislike the metal glasses, too. I'm putting up with dropped glasses (it's only happened once) - for me, since we are using them everyday, I still preferred glass over plastic. I might look for some BPA free plastic ones for my parents' house, though.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of not buying plastic cups anymore makes sense to me and I agree, but I'm not quite following why you would choose to donate perfectly good cups you already own to then purchase "new off the shelf" glass cups. To me this goes against the reduce & reuse concept entirely. I would have thought that you'd use the perfectly good plastic cups until they were worn out or in the very least not buying new glasses at IKEA compared to picking some up at a thrift store or rummage sale. What am I missing?
ReplyDeleteI agree that it seems like I am going against the principle of "reduce and recycle". However, I will be keeping some of the newer plastic cups for use in the backyard this summer (I don't relish the thought of glass smashed all over my driveway or deck). The ones I am getting rid of are all over 10 years old and in a very bad state of use. Many have teeth marks on them, are worn around the edges and have little melted bits where they were put too close to the heating element in the dishwasher.
ReplyDeleteI did think about waiting for garage sale season or looking at a thrift store, but as it happens, I was at IKEA for something else, saw the glasses and went AHA - I could use those. Maybe I need to curb those impulse buys! ;)
I love the small ball jelly jars. they can hit a wood floor many times without breaking!
ReplyDeleteErin - I haven't heard of those. What are they?
ReplyDelete