A reader recently wrote in with a great question about finding a food-safe fabric for making snack and sandwich bags. She was specifically looking for a laminated cotton fabric that was eco-friendly. In digging to answer this question, I found a ton of information and a few ideas for the safest ways to make reusable snack bags that are at least semi leak proof.
The Trouble with Laminated Cotton
There are two big problems with laminated conventional cotton:
- It’s laminated.
- It’s conventional cotton.
Laminated Fabric
“Laminated” is a fancy word for “covered in plastic,” and there are problems with pretty much any plastic touching your food. Even if the lamination is BPA free, you can’t really be sure. The chemicals used to replace BPA in plastics are no picnic either.
Some companies tout PUL or PEVA as food-safe fabrics, but I’m not convinced. If you want to read more about the trouble with PUL and PEVA, Karen wrote a great in-depth piece on them.
The Problem with Cotton
We’ve talked about the trouble with conventional cotton here before, but it definitely bears repeating. From an environmental and human rights standpoint, conventional cotton is shady at best. It requires tons of pesticides to grow, which pollute our waterways and harm workers. It’s often genetically modified, which supports Monsanto, one of the worst companies in the world. It’s just all around bad news.
So, what’s an ethical crafter to do?? Get crafty, of course!
Making Your Own Food Safe Fabric
Doing it yourself means you can choose organic fabric dyed naturally, rather than something full of mystery dyes and plastics. Yay! I came across a couple of ideas for upping the water-resistance of fabrics.
- Beeswax. Julie showed us how to dip paper in beeswax to preserve it, and you can use a similar method to make your fabric leak resistant. Instead of dunking, just paint the wax on one side instead. The only problem with this method is that it probably wouldn’t hold up well to machine washing. You’d need to wipe your wraps clean instead.
- Make your own oilcloth. Traditional oilcloth wasn’t covered in plastic. Like the name suggests, back in the day we made oilcloth out of…oil! Kelly has instructions on how to make your own oilcloth right here. I’m pretty sure that homemade oilcloth isn’t machine washable, either. Has anyone tried this out?
The other option you’ve got is to just fully line those sandwich or snack bags with a heavy weight organic cotton or hemp. It won’t be fully leakproof, but with two layers to absorb moisture, it should work well for most snacks and sandwiches.
I’d love to hear from the seamsters out there! Have any of you guys found food safe fabric for sandwich bags that also fits into your crafting ethics?
About Becky Striepe
I don’t have an alternative for plastic, but I do have an alternative to buying plastic to line snack/sandwich bags. I recently made a sandwich bag out of an old t-shirt and lined it with the bag from the frozen french fries we had finished off the day before. The result was functional, but I think next time I might just use the plastic bag that the bread comes in from the store. Not the best option, but still fairly environmentally friendly.
What a great idea, Kristina!
Reusing food bags sounds like a great idea unless they have shiny coated inner surfaces. These coatings often are perfluorinated compounds or PFC’s– not a great surface for foods either. I wrote a little ditty on these a month or so ago. http://purrfectplay.typepad.com/purrfectplay/2011/10/how-a-helpful-little-molecule-may-be-harming-your-pets.html
Thanks for bringing up an interesting issue and one fun to think about solving.
Thanks, Pam! PFCs are no good at all. I remember reading that they’re also in fast food packaging sometimes – I think like the wrappers that your sandwich comes in?
This was one of my sustainable projects last year. I could not find a food safe plastic either so I love the idea you gave on using beeswax. I make sustainable products and try to use more and more organic materials whenever I can.
We buy sandwich and snack bags from this etsy seller: http://simplypractical.etsy.com She says that the insides of her bags are made from easy to clean food-safe nylon (BPA and PVC free). I even emailed her about it, and she got that info from the fabric store where she buys the fabric. Do we know for sure? No, I guess not, but aside from testing the fabric myself, I guess I need to trust what other have said.
My enviormentally friendly way to pack food: I save the waxed paper from the inside of
my cereal boxes to use again to pack sandwiches, and anything that could leak and
make a mess. I am not aware if these bags have any contamination issues. But they
work beautifully.
Just wanted to say that the packages that most name brand cereals come in (cardboard and wax paper bag) have a preservative sprayed on them that is petroleum based. If you see BHT, BHA, or TBHQ listed on the ingredients then please do not re-use the bags to hold other food. Usually the organic type brands do not have these in them. If you want more info on those preservatives just google “feingold diet”. The website is great and it explains why we should avoid them. … Just wanted to let you know. .. I too am looking for a good solution to hold my food.
I bought white ripstop to back children’s aprons and weaning bibs & think it would work well. I have used it to line swimming bags ,we wrap wettest stuff in towel but it contains the damp.
It washes ok so can’t see a problem !
maybe someone will tell now me it has something deadly in it ….