Washing tin foil on a Sunday morning...

[MrsJamin]

I was wondering what people are doing who don't seem to have strong ethical consciences about green/fairtrade ethical issues. I bet they're not washing tin foil on a Sunday. And yet I am - I'm jealous of them! Sometimes your own conscience is very annoying! Talk me round, somebody please, convince me that it's good to have a strong ethical conscience!

DH does this. And so I have to as well. But I do hate having all the ethical odds and ends of saved stuff round the house - washed but still manky looking tinfoil, pointless cork collection, washed plastic bags stuffed into nooks and crannies, rescued (from me trying to chuck them) j-cloths and scourers in heaps in the futility room, take-away foil dishes that never leave the house once they've come in- again in piles awaiting future use of some unspecified kind...

Can't really argue against the moral high ground but I still don't like having a house full of tat...

We wash foil too.
Makes me use much less.

Could just be laziness, but my ethics make me balance being good for the environment with spending time and energy on my family and other causes important to me.

I throw cleanish foil in my recycling (milk bottle tops inside alu cans, mainly). But the only other thing I use foil for is covering the grillpan, and we tip the fat off that after use, so it only needs replacing a couple times a year - and it's so mank and torn by then I just bin it. Other people seem to use lots of foil - what for?

Local takeaways all deliver in cardboard (recyclable) or plastic reusable boxes, and so far we've always found people wanting the clear plastic boxes for storage, whenever we get too many.

Corks get broken up and chucked in the compost bin. All plastic bags are in a mountain on top of the fridge - we just about manage to keep more going out than coming in...

I use it for covering things I'm cooking. I used foil on roast chicken yesterday, it was only a little covered in grease so I washed it and can use it again for the same purpose. I think the challenge is to see how long I can use the same roll of tin foil, saving particular sizes for particular purposes.

Best to try not to use rolls of foil in the first place really - I only ever use it for unusually shaped food e.g. a big fish on a baking sheet might get wrapped or covered in foil. Otherwise i use a lidded roaster - what do other people use foil for?

Agree about saving things for reusing - i drive myself mad doing this!

Get a Le Creuset roasting dish - or anything big enough with a lid, then you don't need tin foil at all!

put it in the dishwasher

Behind the radiator!!

corks make great firelighters too if you have a real fire or bbq.