Cornstarch, Cans & Camping
It’s only when you go to a festival like Cropredy and eat off a vegetable starch plate that you realise what a versatile material starch can be. Recently the development of this material into a wide range of products has started to take off. At PM, we use starch packing chips instead of polystyrene ones to protect goods sent out in boxes. These can be reused or composted.
Using starch, an Italian company has succeeded in solving one of the major recycling problems of the age, plastic bags. They extrude bags from GM free corn starch. These bags called Ecosacs look and feel similar to conventional bags but are biodegradable and fully compostable. The range runs from small thin bags to industrial strength green waste sacks and even includes carrier bags. They are all certified compostable to EU standards.
One of their range is used in the innovative Bio Box Kitchen Caddy Kit. This kit offers a novel but effective solution to the temporary storage of compostable kitchen waste. Most kitchen caddy systems suffer from the problem of smelly fluids collecting in the bottom of the container and the need to wash them thoroughly between uses. The Bio Box however is a ventilated container which is lined with a 7 litre Ecosac. This combination allows for natural evaporation of fluids which leads to reduced odours and volume of waste material. When it needs emptying the Ecosac liner is simply removed and placed in your compost bin or local green waste disposal point.
The Ecosacs themselves are amazingly durable until mixed with compost, as it takes specific microbio-logical action to cause them to break-down. They have many additional uses including as ‘poop and scoop’ bags and they also fit the Short Kitchen Caddy we reviewed in PM39.
Still on the subject of recycling, most of us collect recyclable paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles. Paper isn’t much of a problem but cans and bottles need to be reduced in size. I used to jump on cans to flatten them but since I have had a new kitchen floor this has had to stop. Plastic bottles usually crush sideways fairly easily but they still take up a lot of room compared to one compressed vertically. The answer to both problems arrived in the shape of a Plascan Bottle & Can Crusher. This deceptively simple device makes light work of vertically crushing drinks cans and plastic bottles.
Smaller bottles and cans are placed inside the unit and crushed by hand or foot pressure on the top. Milk containers and large bottles up to 9 litres can be compressed just using the top assembly. The crusher is made of recycled plastic and offers an economic and ergonomic solution to compressing your recycling.
Back in the Autumn of 2001 (PM 29), we ran an article called Storm In A Teacup. This described how Jon Taylor and a friend walked the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean camping along the way. Fairly amazing in itself but more so because they used a Popular Storm Kettle as their sole means of boiling water and cooking. Finding fuel as they went, it never let them down unlike some of their more high tech equipment. The kettle consists of a fire pan and a kettle which has a conical chimney through its centre. Fired by a few twigs, rolled up newspaper or anything else reasonably flammable, the Original Storm Kettle will boil 1.1 litres (2pt) of water or 0.9 litres (1.5pt) in the case of Popular model, in just a few minutes. Made from spun aluminium they are extremely rugged and operate even in appalling weather conditions. Ideal for use at the allotment, fishing, camping, etc. Highly recommended.
John Adams
N.B. We now stock Kelly Kettles in place of the Storm Kettles reviewed here.
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Bio Box Kitchen Caddy and Ecosacs.
Plascan Bottle & Can Crusher
Original Storm Kettle
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