I’m a parent of 4+ kids with two jobs. I do worry about what the world is going to look like when my kids are grown (heck while they are growing) but I find a very hard part of plastic reduction is the time cost.

For example, peanut butter. The premixed peanut butter comes in plastic jars. The organic, nonhomogenized comes in glass containers with metal/plasticized tops. Better, right? But that means I spend 5-10 minutes mixing the peanut butter every time I take it off the shelf.

For example, yogurt. Comes in plastic containers, right? OK, so I buy the big container to reduce plastic waste and take the time to spoon it into my glass containers for the kids to take for lunch. Add to that the time it takes to clean up the inevitable spill when the container doesn’t close properly as it does on occasion. And all I can find online for plastic-free yogurt is “hey – it’s really easy to make your own!” I’m sure it is, and each one of these little things is not a big deal in and of itself.

My difficulty is that just for yogurt and peanut butter I’ve added a bunch of time I need to invest in food preparation and clean up each week. What thoughts do people have about ways to deal with this?