In my attempts to go zero waste, I gave away the remainder of the Ziplock bags and plastic wrap I had in the kitchen. I know I could have used it up, but at the rate I wash and reuse them, it’d be a long time before I could upgrade to something reusable, and I wanted instant gratification. 🙂
I made up some quick beeswax covered cloth food wraps (for sandwiches, cheese, etc), and bowl covers (to replace cling wrap) yesterday, in less than an hour. I followed some instructions found here. I didn’t stray much from the directions I’ve linked to, so refer there first. I’ll just note my take on the method in case it’s helpful but I can’t take credit for the how-to.
- Heat your oven to 350 degrees F.
- Cut your fabric (I used various fat quarters my mom had gifted me from her stash) to the size you need. I traced a pizza pan and large bowls to make the bowl covers in a variety of sizes, and just cut large squares for the wraps. Nothing technical here. 🙂
- Place one of your cut pieces onto a baking sheet and sprinkle with beeswax pellets.
- Put in the oven for about one minute (long enough to melt the beeswax completely into the cloth)
- Remove from the oven and carefully peel the waxy cloth from the pan.
- Holding the piece of cloth carefully on an edge, fan the cloth up and down to cool quickly. Once you’ve done that a few times the wax will be hardened enough to lay it down on your kitchen counter to completely cool.
- Repeat with remaining fabric pieces.
- Once they’ve all cooler, you can stack them and roll them for storage (so the beeswax doesn’t crack).
- Use like saran wrap! The wax makes the fabric pliable and mold to your contents with the heat from your hands.
I’ve not had to wash any of these yet, but the tips on the website I linked to say you can just clean them with water or a damp soapy rag as needed.
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