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Surely there must be an alternative to this?
Surely there must be an alternative to this? Photograph: Oleksiy Boyko/Alamy Stock Photo
Surely there must be an alternative to this? Photograph: Oleksiy Boyko/Alamy Stock Photo

What can I use instead of clingfilm?

This article is more than 4 years old

What did we do before clingfilm? Is it time to revisit boxes with lids, greaseproof paper or just a bowl with a damp towel over it?

I’m trying to avoid single-use plastic, but am struggling to find a suitable alternative to clingfilm. Help!
Tom, London SW9

Pick up any cookbook or food magazine from the past few decades, and chances are the words “wrap in clingfilm” will crop up in it somewhere (before everyone writes in, yes, we’re well aware the Guardian’s food pages have been as guilty as everyone else in this respect, thanks). But Tom is among the 82% of us now actively looking to reduce the amount of plastic we throw away, especially when it comes to food packaging, according to a recent YouGov survey.

As baking maestro Dan Lepard accepts, “The downside of writing recipes for a long time is that old ones often come back to bite you. Make bread with plastic bottled water? That was me. Use disposable plastic piping bags? Me again. Wrap dough in single-use clingfilm? Yep, me, too.” Along with just about every cookery writer since the stuff was developed back in 1949 by the Dow Chemical Company in the US: Saran wrap, as it was originally known, was first sold for household use in the early 1950s, and has been more or less omnipresent ever since.

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You can understand the appeal, especially for bakers, because it keeps in moisture and protects from air spoilage and outside odours. As Lepard says, “Clingfilm is a marvel, because it creates a flexible, airtight seal that prevents drying out and stops, for example, a crust forming on a dough’s surface.” No wonder they call the stuff glad wrap in Australia.

Even so, times change and, as Lepard acknowledges, “We always need new approaches that take in current thinking.” Step forward chef Douglas McMaster, who heads up the UK’s most eco-friendly restaurant, the 100% zero-waste Silo in Brighton. When planning a restaurant kitchen, he says, “I make sure I think ahead and plan with containers in mind, so I can use lids instead of clingfilm.” Sure, that requires time and organisation, “but the end result is worth it, because there is no storage waste whatsoever”. He’s currently practising what he preaches while designing his new venture, Silo London, due to open in Hackney Wick in September, following a remarkably swift and successful crowd-funding campaign earlier this year.

There’s no reason that same philosophy can’t apply in a domestic kitchen, too, so what are the other alternatives to clingfilm for the home cook? Greaseproof paper, foil and wax paper are obvious solutions – in fact, in some cases, such as cheese, they’re preferable to clingfilm, because they let food breathe and don’t trap moisture, which can help breed mould – but though they’re all recyclable, they have similar single-use issues that rule them out as truly viable options.

Lepard, meanwhile, has changed his ways entirely and now rests dough in a bowl covered by a damp tea-towel: “The dampness offsets any water loss from evaporation,” he says, “and the differences from dough wrapped in clingfilm are negligible.” (A container with a lid should do the trick, too – floured or greased, if need be, to prevent stickage.)

There’s also an ancient approach to food wrap that McMaster sees as a possible way ahead: “We use beeswax wrap, which looks a bit like baking paper and is lined with a malleable wax that sticks really well.” It’s washable and reusable (you can even re-wax the sheets when they start to get tired), and you can turn it into a piping bag, too; and if you’re a strict vegan, there are soy wax versions available. Made from cotton coated in beeswax, they’ve been used to preserve food for centuries – the warmth of your hands melts the wax enough so the sheets can be moulded around everything from bowls and plates to cheese, bread, fruit and veg (for obvious health and safety reasons, they’re not suitable for wrapping a piece of raw meat or fish, and then subsequently reusing).

There is a catch: these sheets cost way more than a roll of clingfilm – they start at about £10 per pack – but they’ll last you a year or more, so for many that may well be a price worth paying.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

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