13: Beeswax Wraps 101 — Plastic-Free Food Storage with Hive to Home

Let your reusables look reused.

In this episode of Sustainable in the Suburbs, I’m joined by Chelsey Schmuland, the owner and maker behind Hive to Home in Nova Scotia. Chelsey creates beautiful handmade beeswax wraps as a sustainable, renewable alternative to plastic food storage — but that’s just the beginning. She’s also a backyard chicken keeper, bread baker, waste diversion enthusiast, and all-around eco-nerd in the best possible way.

We talk about what inspired her to start Hive to Home, how her wraps are made, creative ways to use them, and why preventing food waste is one of the most powerful climate actions we can take in our own kitchens. Along the way, we also get into composting, connecting with nature, and the joy of using what you already have.

Takeaways

• Sustainable living can start with small, manageable changes.
• Beeswax wraps are a practical, reusable alternative to plastic food storage.
• How to use beeswax wraps for food storage and beyond!
• Understanding food waste’s impact on climate change is crucial — Canadian households waste $1300 worth of food per year, and 63% of it could have been eaten.
• Food waste prevention tips including meal planning, proper (and plastic free storage), and using food rescue apps to save money and keep food out of the landfill.
• Composting is a rewarding way to manage scraps and close the loop.
• Community and shared interests are key to strengthening sustainability efforts.

One Small Shift

Pause the scroll! Slow down and notice how you feel less overwhelmed, and feel less compelled to consume.

Connect with Chelsey @ Hive to Home

Hive to Home - Shop

Hive to Home - Instagram

Hive to Home - Beeswax Wrap Care

Resources

A Beginner’s Guide to a Sustainable Kitchen (use code PODCAST20 to save 20%)

Plastic Free July: 31 Easy Swaps to Reduce Plastic Waste

10 Zero Waste Kitchen Swaps That Save You Money

1000 Hours Outside

Transcript

0:00

A great piece of advice from my guest today is this, let your reusables look reused. Welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, a podcast for the eco curious who want to live a greener life and are looking for a place to start. I'm your host, Sarah Robertson Barnes, a soccer mom with a station wagon and a passion for sustainable living. Each week I'll bring you practical tips and honest conversations to help you waste less, save money and make small doable shifts that actually fit your real life. Because sustainable living doesn't have to be perfect to matter and you don't have to do it all to make a difference. Hi friends and welcome back to Sustainable in the Suburbs, the podcast where we start where we are, use what we have and live a little greener. This show is currently listener supported. So if you're enjoying the episodes and want to help me keep it going, there are a few simple ways to support it. You can share an episode with a friend, leave a rating or a review, or check out the links in the show notes. Every little bit truly helps and it means a lot. This week, we're heading to Nova Scotia to chat with Chelsea Schmeland, the owner and maker behind Hive to Home. Chelsea creates beautiful handmade beeswax wraps as a sustainable and renewable alternative to plastic food storage. But that's just the beginning. She's also a backyard chicken keeper, a thrifter, an outdoorsy lady, a bread baker, a waste diversion enthusiast, and all around eco nerd in the best possible way. and we're going to talk about it all. So let's get into it. Hi, Chelsea. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad to be chatting with you today. So let's start with a little intro for the folks. So like, who are you and where are from? What's life like in your little corner of the world these days? Excellent. My name is Chelsea Schmuland and I'm from Nova Scotia, a little suburb with rural characteristics outside of Halifax. I'm lucky enough that our suburb, we have a lot of characteristics. have lot of land and a lot of trees and um undevelopment around us. So like on my little plot of land, we have our chickens. It's on a very small scale that is a component of our sustainability. have an 80 foot garden, a greenhouse, but in our area, it's still very coastal, very undeveloped, very quiet. It's so quiet where I am. And I really value that. There's a really strong sense of community. Yeah, uh I like it. That sounds lovely. I used to live in Halifax, as you know, but I lived right downtown. So, but even then, because I'm from Toronto, it was, it's such a totally different vibe. felt like small community oriented people saying hello to me on the street really freaked me out at first. ah But yeah, I miss it a lot. I would go back in a heartbeat. But it turns out we went to the same university. Yes, both to Delhousie, although at different times. But you took an environmental science program, did you not? I did. I did a Bachelor of Science with a double major in Environmental Science and Environment Sustainability and Society. That sounds like a dream. They did not have that when I was there in the 90s. But it sounds like we're both survivors of the life sciences building. I was the second graduating class from the sustainability program. It was a brand new college and you had to have a second major with it. But I really liked being kind of the guinea pig second class because it was very collaborative. And I really liked that everybody in the class had a different second major because when you're having these conversations and like capstone projects, everybody brought such a different approach and a different perspective to it. And then every year they'd still do like a wine and cheese alumni event. So every year people get to go back and reconnect. it's, it's that small steal in a big university. I just love That's such an important part in sustainability work too, is having folks come in, add it from all different angles with all different perspectives because it is such a multi-layered issue with multi-layered solutions. Yeah, and it's in every sector. Every sector needs a sustainability component. Absolutely. I was just going to ask you, have you always been into sustainability or was there something that pulled you in? Yeah. So I grew up outside. We camped, fished, went ice skating, worked on the cars and the motorcycles in the garage. Like we were scuba diving. I've been scuba diving since I was like 13. So we were always outside. um And then I went to Dell for marine biology and it was, it was interesting. It was all like entry level courses, but I felt like it might be too niche for me. And then, so I switched to the environmental science and sustainability. And I just loved that interdisciplinary approach. But for me, there was a class where someone, a solid waste educator came in and he had examples of waste. And this man was hyped. He was like spaghetti cans. he was, it was contagious. His excitement for this solid waste. I was like, this is really cool. I it kind of planted a seed within me. And then I started talking to people about solid waste and it was hard to find homies who were also excited about garbage. Now it's not as cutting edge. Like back then it was more bleeding edge to be like, are we thinking about where the garbage is going? Like I'm really interested in this and passionate about it. People were like, okay, like that sustainability component was still kind of like, I don't want to say fringe, but newer. So I started like learning more about waste and being more open about being really interested in it and finding it so interesting and being curious about like, where is it going? And I was especially interested in the diversion, like behaviors. Why are people putting it in this bin, but it belongs in this bin? And why does, why is it even going in this bin? So I was looking around and trying to find community in that and I couldn't really find it. Like there was people interested in sustainability, but not that like passionate about waste. So like I finished up with the college and was able to find more like-minded community and kind of snowballed into Hive to Home, whereas now on Instagram, I kind of started doing what I was looking for. And it seems that other people are now more interested in learning about waste, sorting their waste, reducing their waste, which is amazing. It's interesting how you go looking for community, but then community finds you when you just start talking about what you love. And it's one thing about waste diversion that I found so interesting is when I first moved to Halifax, so that was in 1998. I'd never seen a grain bin before, like a compost bin, a municipal compost bin. Didn't know what that was. And also a bottle deposit. on everything. So bottle deposit is where we have that at the beer store here in Ontario, but it's where you pay like, let's say 10 cents on every can or bottle that you buy. And then you get five cents back when you return it. And guess what? Bottle deposit super works and the recovery rate is very, very high when that's the case. And same when I first went to PEI with like their extended producer responsibility and refilling the glass bottles and, that sort of thing. And I'd never seen any of those things before. And now we have, at least we have municipal pickup here in the GTA, but bottle deposit is still elusive here in Ontario. But I love that you put all of that out on Instagram. I learned so much about food storage from you. And I thought I was like really hip to everything. Also, everyone go follow Chelsea on Instagram. It's such a chaotic presence. It's this amazing mix of practical and passionate sustainability and there's composting and there's chickens and there's food storage, but tons of outdoor adventures and sprinkled in drag queens and it's just my favorite. let's talk about your business, Hive to Home. Tell us everything about these gorgeous beeswax wraps that you make and what inspired you to start doing that in the first place. So I was working for the Halifax Seaport Farmers Market, like the big farmers market downtown. I super loved it. And then I went off on maternity leave and I started making beeswax wraps for myself. And then friends and family wanted them. So I started putting up social media to show like how I was using them and what I was doing with them. Friends and family wanted them and that interest grew organically. And then one day Colleen Jones from CBC messaged me and said, we're doing a segment on waves of change, like reducing single use plastic. Can I come to your studio? I got to do a segment. It's my kitchen. Yes, you can come to my house. And it was really special because my grandfather was actually a cameraman for CBC and had worked with Colleen. em So we were like able to reminisce and that was really nice. So that segment uh went live and I had put up a website the day before. And then as that segment aired, I watched the website populate and then the weather channel cross-posted it. So it was on the weather channel as well. Then again, it just like organically snowballed with interest and it's grown very sustainably and very organically since then. um And so it's a beeswax wrap business. make a handmade beeswax wraps. They are made with 100 % cotton, beeswax from Nova Scotian farmers, packaged free jojoba oil from a locally owned store, and pine rosin, which is like that very sticky sap on the side of a tree. And it's sustainably sourced in Montreal. And then I hand make them. And I also make twist ties with the scraps of fabric, which have proven to be very fun and very cool. One of the things that you offer on your website too, which I think is really cool is sort of like the whoopsie wraps where maybe, oops, I did not quite cut that properly. I have a couple of the circular ones with a little, no, I got too close to the edge. um Yeah, that's my favorite that nothing goes to waste and the scraps are turned into twist ties, like you said, but also the thing that I love the most in the package that I got from you last year was that all of the tags are made from the box. of cereal boxes and crockery boxes. tell us about that? Yeah, friends and family save their, it's post-consumer box boards. So friends and family save their cereal boxes, cracker boxes, um cardboard packaging for me. And then I had a stamp made seven and a half years ago in Burnside, Nova Scotia by a locally owned company. And I am still using that same stamp. I, or Mr. Hyped Home stamps all my tags and then we hand cut them out and hand punch them. And actually a lot of customers will bring me back my tags. so I It's interesting how when people see things like that, they think, what a good idea. And there's so much inherent value in the material that just gets transferred from doing something like that, that they will save it and give it back to you. I find that when I wrap things in cloth and give it away at Christmas or whatever, you watch the person just like fold it back up and make sure that they get it back to you. It's interesting how quickly that shift can occur. So cool. I love it. The fabrics you choose are... Amazing. They're so fun. Is there anything in particular that you look for? It's so funny because, first of all, I have to feel the fabric. It has to be a hundred percent cotton and I know the weight of the cotton that I like. At this point, I know what will make a beeswax wrap and I know what won't just by feeling it. So I have to touch it and feel it. I had to have it in my hands. And I go and I try to pick patterns that people have voiced that they would like. People are very hot on mermaids right now. Mermaids, whimsy, cats. mushrooms. There's like the hot one. Frogs. I don't have frogs. I need an SRB frog. So I get the fabrics that I know that people have said that they want or that I know people will like. And then I try to pick things that I think are interesting. Hot dogs, pretzels, dogs coming out of bushes. em And it's so funny what takes off. things that I think this is the one. And then, which is totally fine, because then it gets made into twist ties. So it's totally fine. And then some things. em Last year, there was pumpkins. It was pumpkins that were kind of glittery, sold out immediately. So I try to kind of throw it all out there and people find what speaks to them. Some people don't care at all. And then some people are like, no, I want this pattern. but I try to have a little bit of everything. I like having the different patterns too, because I keep my wraps like folded in a drawer and then I don't have to, you just sort of get to know your wraps. And so if I know like I need the big one for the cheese, I know that's the one with the coral. Or if I just want the, I have a little compost bin that I keep like on my cutting board that I broke the lid of. So now I have, I have a circular one, one of your small circular ones that has like mountains on it. And I know that's the one that fits on that. container on top of my little compost bin. It's like a, it's just like a ceramic. Then I can just, yep. just boop and then just goes on the top and no big deal. So that there's not like fruit flies in that in it, but I just, you just get to know, I like this wrap for this. And so it's not as, I don't know, involved to sort of think like, well, what's the best wrap that's going to fit on this? You just get to know your wrap. So I love having that variety of all the different colors and And that just, yeah, it just helps you feel fancy. That's awesome. Also, it spruces up my fridge and my lunchbox. I love opening my fridge and it's so colorful. Yeah, it's more, this sounds really weird because don't eat the wraps. Sustainable in the suburbs does not recommend you eat beeswax wraps, it makes everything feel more appetizing because it's not covered in plastic. You know exactly what's touching your food. And beeswax is a widely accepted food covering those baby bell cheeses. Those are covered in beeswax. is that beeswax? didn't know that. So why beeswax versus other types of uh like what, no, soy wax or what have you. Why did you choose to do beeswax exclusively? It smells great. And the beeswax, the jojoba and the pine resin, they're the trifecta of antibacterial, antimicrobial and antifungal. So they help your food breathe while also keeping it fresh longer. Like I forget stuff in them, I find it and I eat it. It's a miracle of technology that for herbs, especially like things that are really delicate. I find you really well in the beeswax. Yeah. What do you think makes your wraps different from other ones that are out there? Cause I've tried them all and yours are literally the best. I don't know you put unicorn tears in them or whatever. But yeah, what do you think makes your product different? Yeah, I get asked this a lot. um So every beeswax wrap maker will make them differently because they will, there's different waxes you can use. Like you said, the beeswax, soy wax, I can't think of another, but there's different types of waxes that you can use. um And there's some people don't use pine rosin um and there's different ratios of those three ingredients. You can increase the ratio of pine rosin to make it stickier. My preference. um Because to take a step back, I need these wraps for my own personal use, to use them daily and in my fridge. So I'm offering a product that I believe in wholeheartedly. I'm using these things in my fridge every single day. And it is not lost on me that people are trusting these to bring them home and put them on their food, which they ingest, which to me is very important. I value that highly and they're trusting it to bring it into their home and their kitchen. It's very special space. So the beeswax wraps that I make, I believe in them very much. so the ratio of the beeswax pine resin and jojoba oil, it's enough that it gives the wrap tack to stick to a vessel, like a container or to itself very well, but not leave a feeling on your fingers. and not stick to your apple or stick to your cucumber. Like it's just the right amount of tack that sticks and works really well. I turn stuff upside down on my Instagram all the time and shake it. And I go as hard as I can that they work, but they don't leave your hands feeling oily or sticky. Yeah, it's not leaching anything, which concerns me about using plastic in the fridge or in general. Yeah, they're not leaving anything behind. there's a balance with how much mixture to put on the wrap, because more isn't always better. Too much mixture on there and it crumbles, like cakes and flakes and breaks very easily. Too little and you don't get the right amount of stick and tack. So you need just the right amount of balance and amount to get a wrap. That's good. And it's going to last. And they do last. I think the ones that I got from you, got over a year ago now and they're like brand new. I'm just gonna pat myself on the back for proper care, which we will talk about in a moment for extending the life of your wraps. But so for someone who has never used a beeswax wrap before, how do you use it? Yeah, so the beeswax wrap will, excuse me, it'll form with the warmth of your hands. So if you're forming it around half an apple, put the apple in the wrap and then form the wrap around the apple with the warmth of your hands. You want it to kind of overlay or overhang the side of the apple a bit so it can stick to itself and get a nice seal. Same thing if you're covering a plate, a bowl, container, jar. Lay the wrap on there and form it around it with the warmth of your hands. And the more you work into your wrap, the better it gets. The more flexible it gets, the more moldable it gets. So don't be scared to fold them up, to crumble them, to use them. Yeah, don't have to them pristine or flat or anything like that. The more it's like a paper bag, it gets nice and soft the more you crumple it. But also, yeah, it doesn't crack or break or anything like that. And it is not nearly as frustrating as trying to use a piece of cling wrap, which is just the dumbest product. for us. uh same. And now I can't fathom what I would even use it for. So on that note then, what are some of your favorite ways to use them? I know we've like, we've talked before like, no way you can use it for this, but you have some great uses for them. like, yes, you can cover a piece of cut food with them or wrap them over a bowl. But what are some other ways? What are some of your favorite ways to use wraps? I, so we try to spend a thousand hours outside every year. So I'm packing a lunch quite often in a book bag and out the door. So I put it, I put a wrap over the end of my cutlery so that weird book bag things aren't touching my cutlery. When we go camping, I cover the end of my toothbrush with beeswax wrap so that weird bag things aren't touching my toothbrush. just did that when we were traveling this spring. don't have one of those stupid little hats for my toothbrush anymore. It's gone. I was like, just wrapped it up. we go. Yeah. And then you just keep reusing it. Same thing when we try, when we go camping, I put my soap in a beeswax wrap. I have some in my crisper in my fridge, like as a liner, because it helps keep the stuff from sticking to my fridge when it inevitably spills. So much easier to just take that out and clean it than to take out the whole fridge shelf. That's the worst. just spent a couple hours doing that the other weekend, cleaning up everything that was spilled in the fridge. And so now I'm going to do that. It's like three YouTube videos later on how to take the shelf out. Same as in the pantry, like lying in the pantry with them. I like folding them into little envelopes for things like herbs, like I mentioned earlier, or you could just do nuts or whatever when you're putting them in your bag. I have also used it as a jar funnel in a pinch. I was just like, well, I have this giant one and I don't know where my jar funnel went. I don't know. I might have spent in the dishwasher, who knows? But I was like, oh, perfect. think it was to put pepper in the pepper grinder because that's so frustrating and the funnel just doesn't fit. And I was just like, wait a second, because you can mold it into any shape that you want. And that worked out perfect. This is my shining moment in reusing the jar funnel. I love it. another thing, and I love talking to customers. Like I love doing face-to-face markets because people come and tell me the ways that they've been using beeswax wraps. So one way that I've heard and now I've adopted is that people use them to open and close jars, like those pickle jars. get a grip with the beeswax wrap and it's really handy for opening and closing. I do that as well. have nerve damage in one of my hands and so I don't have a lot of grip. And I grabbed a beeswax wraps once by accident instead of the dishcloth out of my drawer and just I was like, my God. So now you don't have to buy like a separate opener or that thing with them. Yeah. All of it. just like, you probably have something in your kitchen that will work for this and it's probably going to be a beeswax wrap. So how do you clean them? And I will tell you that my father-in-law murdered one of my wraps, bet you can guess how. So share with us how you clean a beeswax rod. Well, do not put it in the dishwasher. Wasn't that, but it's close. Yeah. Okay, well step one, don't put in the dishwasher. So say you put like a sandwich in it or an English muffin, pretzels, nuts. When you eat those or take them out, you can just brush those bits right off. Because the beeswax wrap doesn't really stick to the food. So you can just brush those bits right off. If you get sourdough starter on it, I use mine to cover my sourdough starter, let it dry and then just flick it off. It's so much easier than scrubbing it. If you cover half a lemon, half a tomato, you get a little bit of juice on there, just use a damp kitchen cloth and wipe it off. Make sure you use room temperature or cold water to wipe it off. It was hot water. Yeah. He scrubbed it with hot water. Bless his heart. He was to, you know, trying them out, trying to use it. And I just forgot that education piece. So cold water is key. cold water is key and scrubbing it, scrubbing it will hurt the wax. if you cover, last night I didn't eat all my pasta and I covered my bowl so that I didn't have to dirty a Tupperware and then dirty another bowl the next day. just covered my bowl with a beeswax wrap and put it in the fridge. And then, you know, I shook it upside down to show the internet that it was holding. So I cut sauce on my wrap. So I put like a little If I have liquid soap, I'll put a drop on the wrap, or if I have solid dish soap, so I just get my kitchen cloth a little bit wet with room temperature or cold water and just give the wrap a gentle wipe. Just gentle. You really don't have to come onto it. Rinse it off, let it dry, and it's good to be used again. But the wraps are antimicrobial, antifungal, antibacterial. So I've forgotten a red pepper in a wrap for like two months. Onions, herbs. There's some mystery stuff down there right now. know there is. even if the food either totally dries up or goes totally rotten, usually the wrap can be washed and saved. Like they are really hard to hurt. stains don't mean dirty. No, such a, such a stance, such a hill I'm willing to die on right now is let re-usables look reused. have, I have a bug wrap. It's like beige and it has some bugs on it. And that was the one that I forgot the red pepper in there for two months. So it has some redness on it. It kind of looks like tie dye now. And it's, it's a reusable. Of course it's going to look reused and that's fine. You were speaking my language, let reusables look reused. I went viral with my water bottle a couple of years ago ah where folks were really concerned that I was drinking out of this water bottle that looks like it's been run over by a bus at this point. Cause I've had it for like 20 years and it is still perfectly functional as a water bottle. I do not need a new water bottle because this still holds water. It doesn't stand very level. It looks like it's been shot out of a cannon, but it still holds water. And I'm very proud of that. Yes. Yeah. My book bag is the same book bag I went to Dalhousie with. I'm still rocking my field notes bag from like 1998 when I go out to do my bird monitoring. It's still my same field bag from back when I took marine biology at Dalhousie. But like, it, to be honest, it's held up really well. Like it doesn't look especially beaten up, but why would I replace it? It's a perfectly good book bag. And my BeastFox app, even though it has red on it, it's still perfectly functional and it's not gross. It's perfectly safe to use again. So yeah, that's a big stance I'm willing to take. Let reusables look reused. I love that so much and loved things last. Yes. uh yes. Look after your things. Mend, repair. Now, I find it so hard to find things that are repairable. That's so tough, I find. But if you can, yeah, look after your stuff. Mend it, repair it. Because it also keeps handiwork alive. I, handiwork is so important. It's such a skill, such a talent, supports community. Handiwork is the opposite of doom scrolling for me. If I'm knitting something, if I'm out here repairing my thrifted dish towel, it keeps me from doom scrolling. It keeps me engaged. And it's that reward driven cycle where I'm like, yeah, I fixed this. And it looks fixed. It does not look cute, but it does look super cute. Yes, and there's people in the community who are still doing handiwork. There's an amazing cobbler in Halifax. Like if you have shoes that need to be repaired to extend their life, you can take it to someone who's going to repair your shoes and give them a whole new life. Yeah. The shoe repair place here in the, one of our many, many plazas. live in a, in a sprawling subdivision plaza hell hole. It's not really a hell hole, but you know what I mean? It's just, it's just endless, I suppose. Like you sprawl around the GTA. It's just endless. My town is perfectly lovely, but anyhow, shoe repair guy. I went in, it was something wrong with the zipper on my winter coat. And I wanted the zipper replaced because winter coats are a dollars and my coat is perfectly fine except for the zipper. And he was like, you know what? I can't fix it, but come with me. And he walked me to another place in the Plaza where they have like a tailor at the back of the convenience store. I had no idea it was in there. Yeah. I had no idea. And now I take everything to them. So, mean, he was like, yeah, I can't do it, but I know somebody who can. me. It always comes back to that. So speaking of love things last, how long does a beeswax wrap typically last for? Last year, I went to a school to do a Beast Wax Wrap workshop and to talk about, actually, was about entrepreneurship. So cool. It was an elementary class. Such great questions. But the teacher brought her wrap in and it was over five years old. Wow. And she had brought food in at that day. That's awesome. And had you made that one? Yes, it was my wrap. cool. Yeah. I can remember every fabric and pattern that I've used. And she was like, this is your wrap. And I was like, yes, it is. It was purple with white dots. And so that day I sell the pucks to refresh the wraps. the pucks have, it has the same ratio of ingredients that I use to make the wraps, but so that people can, if they want to try and make their own or to refresh the wraps so that they can love them and keep reusing them. uh So I refreshed hers in the class that day and it was like brand new. That's so cool. I didn't know that. so they last for years. Yeah, because the fabric, cotton, cotton's hard to hurt. So even if it's crumbly, well used, well loved, you can put it between two pieces of parchment paper and put an iron on top, put a little heat on it, and then it'll look brand new because usually there's still a lot of mixture in the cotton. And then once you have worn it down to... just cotton and you're not getting that tack and that stick that you're used to and you like, you can get a puck and then refresh it yourself. Like just grade a little bit on top or. Yeah, I make the pucks really thin so that you can just snap it with your hands. cool. Yeah, so you can just snap it apart right onto the wrap between two pieces of parchment paper, iron on top. Hot tip though, get your fingertips wet before you pick up the wrap. That way the beeswax won't burn you or stick to you. would happen to me. So thank you so much. And now I'm like, I'm so excited to repair my wrap someday, but they're nowhere close to needing it. Are they compostable at the end of life? Like when they're just completely done? Always check your local waste sorting guidelines. In HRM, uh cotton is not accepted in the curbside green cart collection. Okay, and what about home compostable, or is it just not hot enough? I don't think it's hot enough. One thing that I do with some other brands that I've used that have broken down is, or at least I, you know what? I probably could have refreshed them and that didn't even occur to me. But I cut them into strips, which I know you have made something out of that. Do want to tell the folks about that? And then I'll give my little use for them. Yes. Yeah. So I use the twist ties in place of the metal and plastic twist ties. I use it on food packaging. If we eat half of a bag of food, use the twist tie and then just keep reusing it. And it served other purposes for like putting wires up under desks in our home or fixing plants up to their stakes. that's, yeah, I've found them wildly useful. for a Christmas present out of one of your twist ties. had it in just a little bag. Like, how am going to close this? And I was like, wait, I have one that will perfectly match this fabric from one that you made. And I was just like, I wonder if I could do it. And then I did. And the person was like, here you go. And gave it back to me with the wrapping to be reused as well. So you can keep that, but it's just interesting how it shifts what people are thinking of. But with the ones I didn't know. twist ties didn't even occur to me back when I did this, but I now have enough for life where I had like two or three other wraps and I cut them into thin strips and then I twist them on like twist, twist, twist, twist, twist so that they look almost like a birthday candle. And then I use those for lighting campfires cause they burn like a candle. So you can just sort of go around your campfire and light all around your campfire and then just toss it in. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, I've heard people use them uh for like buffing cutting boards and furniture because the beeswax in there is, beeswax is used in so many ways. I don't even know all the ways, but yeah, people have used them for like polishing stuff at the end of their life as well. That would have never occurred to me either. So, wow, peace out. This is endless. There's so many ways to use them. And I'm sure like as soon as we're done recording, we'll each think of three more things. Oh, wait, I forgot to say this, but again, just follow Chelsea who's always showing you, I just thought of it. Okay. I was going to say always showing you different ways to use them and turning things upside down. So I saw you do that with a bottle of something and I'm, can't like finish a pop ever. So I used one to just cover the lid of my pop can and put it back in the fridge. And it was still fizzy when I came back to it later in the day. One time a customer was really excited because they had a bottle of, think it was like sparkling champagne. So it's like fizzy champagne. And they were so excited to cover the bottle with the beeswax trap. Look, I brought this and it was like at a party. then they turned it upside down. a champagne everywhere. Beeswax trap went flying. So if it's bubbly, don't turn it upside down and shake As soon you said that, former chemistry brain went, uh-oh. Yeah, it went everywhere. So if it's fizzy, don't turn it upside down, but it will keep the flies out. It'll keep it good. oh That's so funny. least there's a good story that comes out of it. So we've already talked a lot about how beeswax wraps can help reduce food waste because they keep things fresher for longer, way longer than you think. But I'd like to take a step back and talk about the bigger picture of food waste in Canada where we both live. So for folks who may not know, food waste is especially when it, well. when it's sent to landfill is a major contributor to climate change in the form of greenhouse gas emissions because nothing breaks down in a landfill, not even food, especially food due to the anaerobic environment. So for example, food waste, emissions from food waste were a country, would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And not just that, but the amount of money that we waste every year with food waste, especially... In this economy in the year 2025, food is very expensive and the average Canadian family wastes $1,300 worth of food per year. And 63 % of that could have still been eaten according to Love Food, Hate Waste. So if you are looking to be more sustainable at home, preventing a food waste is the biggest place that you can make an impact. So other than switching to beeswax wraps, which obviously we're all going to do now. If someone's just starting to pay attention to how much food they're tossing, like what's a realistic first step? I think, well, I think meal planning is very helpful. Cook twice, cook once, eat twice. Cook enough that you can eat it for lunch or the next day. Like have leftovers. Leftovers are fine. They're safe. meal planning, I think is a really great place to start. I think being aware of what's coming into your home is also a really great place to start. which probably starts with the meal planning, going out and having a plan when you're making a purchase. That way you're not just bringing the food home, letting it sit in your fridge and then throwing it out. We have a family of four. We spend $200 to $250 a month on food because I try to waste as little as possible. So one way that I find helpful for reducing our food waste is, you know, if someone doesn't finish their toast, I keep the crust, I cut it up and save it and that's either becoming croutons or it's becoming like a French toast bake or it's getting fried up in cinnamon and sugar and how exciting now it's like cinnamon toast crunch. Like I try to keep our food circular in the home so that not as much is going out that way not as much has to come in. Reuse food. You can reuse it. It doesn't have to be just that one thing either. um And I love a deal. So these apps that are selling, um so this is not sponsored. I use it just personally. Like I use flash food all the time. So last week I got 20 kilograms of garlic. So I, I and my friends, thankfully I had help peeled it. dehydrated it, froze it. A friend also got a box. turned it into like fermented garlic, all these different uses. But that way, like I don't have to buy garlic forever now. I do the same thing with tomatoes. Look at a $10 box of 20 pound tomatoes. And I'll boil some down, it into tomato sauce. I'll dehydrate some of it to tomato powder. I'll free some of it. So it's those, I try to use food creatively. And those bulk, cheap purchases really help um extend, like it just helps the creativity in the house too. and those food rescue apps that you were talking about. Typically how those work is the one that I use is Splash Food. can't remember if you just said that or not. Yes, you did. Okay. So basically how apps like that work are uh grocery stores have things that they are about to throw away and that will go in the trash. They're not composting that. will more than likely end up going to landfill. And so they'll post it on the app and you have to pick it up within like a day or two. And then they'll have like the fridges sort of by the cash so that you can go and pick up. There's always meat. There's always meat and fish. You can usually get some pretty good deals on dairy, which you can freeze and then boxes of fruit all the time. That's how I get my oranges to do like all my silly orange decorations for Christmas. I get those so that they're like, quote, like expired. Like it doesn't really expire, but I feel okay about using those in that way if I'm not going to be using them for anything else. Cause they were just, they were going to go in the trash anyhow. which is crazy, the amount of food that we lose, not just at the household level, but also on the corporate level. Yeah. Here the diversion rates for, um, for stores is really good. There's a lot of compliance with stores composting their food correctly, which is great. Um, but like I'll get a giant bag of $5 onions and then I'll dehydrate them. So I have onion powder and it's also a great way to sneak in nutrition and flavor into the food that I'm making. I'll, I'll get a $5 giant bag of mushrooms. I'll dehydrate it and then put it into sauces that I'm blending up anyway. And it sneaks nutrition into. whatever I'm making. I try to be a from scratch household. Not 100 % because nothing I'm doing is perfect. try to do sustainability imperfectly. But a lot of what I'm making is from scratch. So I'm trying to sneak those vitamins and minerals in where I can. um And it's, yeah, I try to recycle the food in our house. I love the concept of recycling food because I think like a lot of the, when I say like 63% of the food could have still been eaten. It is things like peels. You can dehydrate those, you can make broth out of them, whatever it is. those types of things, but also just like the food that we forget about in our fridge. have a friend of mine calls it her bi-weekly zucchini. where she buys on every grocery shop and then just forgets about it. For me, it's orange peppers. We're just never the person that we think we are at the grocery store. So again, that's where the meal planning comes in, but also the proper food storage piece as well. And food just doesn't last in plastic in our refrigerators. Yeah. So storing it in a way that'll help it last longer and then having those creative ways to turn it into something else, dehydrating, freezing, fermenting, canning. I shopped my pantry today to throw a soup in the slow cooker really quickly. And yeah, those food rescue apps is a really great way to kind of stock up. And it's for you save money. Like it's great for your budget too. Like we're all out here trying to save money. Even if you aren't like, I want to do a few sustainable things. Like whatever is going to save you money is also going to be like a form of climate action because you're, you're either buying less or you're buying something that keeps it out of the landfill. Yeah. I also have a Google spreadsheet where I have an item, cheese, I have that item cost per 100 grams from every store. So if I'm at a store, Walmart has cheese on for $4.99, I can open up my Google Docs and very quickly see, is that actually the cheapest price going right now for cheese? of being like marketed. that it is. I don't feel pressured when I'm in a store and I see something on sale to impulsively buy it. I can fact check my Google doc and see, actually, that's not the then reference your meal plan to be like, wait, do I actually have a plan to use all this cheese that I just got for $2 or whatever? Yes. had someone ask me that the other day, like, oh, you can freeze cheese. I'm like, yeah, you can freeze pretty much anything. Yeah. We got 30 blocks on flash food, 30 blocks of cheese, there were 30 blocks, or three blocks each. So we froze them. That just blew my mind. Yeah, I keep telling my husband like we need to get a bigger freezer because our kids are now like I have two teenage boys now. And the impetus where he was like, all right, I'm going to start looking. He finds everything on Kijiji. This is how I like Jedi mind tricked him into being more sustainable because he would like prime himself a pack of Post-it notes. Otherwise, there's a thing that happened. He's like, all right, I'm going to start looking on Kijiji. I showed him the picture of your husband with like the 20 bags of uh English muffins or something like that from Flash Food. were a dollar each. I was like, look at this. And he's like, all right. And that moved up to the top of his list of ways that we can store more food like that. we don't have the milk crate organization. So did you say something that you saw that I did? Yes. So that's something that, so my husband's like a Virgo and he's an engineer and he also has the spreadsheets of everything that's in all the milk crates. And like, I'm just here for the vibes, but we got, yeah, I can't remember where the milk crates came from. They're probably like leftover from university furniture days. Who knows? But we have milk crates that we stack inside our freezer. And then each thing, each crate is like its own thing. So we have one that's all of the frozen fruit. And then one is bread and one is miscellaneous. I don't know. And then we can also stack jars in them as well. So we'll batch cook like a ton of beans in the Instant Pot and then put them in jam jars. And that's about equivalent to a can of beans, but they're already cooked and spiced and everything. And then we can stack those inside the milk crate and the jars seem to do a lot better in the freezer when they're protected like that. yeah, milk in the freezer. I really can't recommend that enough. it's like, cause you can just pull it out and then you can write on top of your freezer what's in each milk crate just with a dry erase marker. That's amazing. I love that so much. And you mentioned the batch cook and then freezing in a jar. That's like a serving portion that makes sense. That's such a great way to do it. And it's okay to freeze it in It is. I need to do a whole post about that. was talking, we were at a soccer tournament on the weekend and I was just talking about all this stuff because I can't stop and said like, yeah, of course you can freeze in glass. And it like blew everyone's mind. Like, of course you can, you have to do it in a certain way. Blow up a jar in the freezer. Trust and believe. times. But there are strategies for all of these things. Like we don't have to rely on plastic if you don't want to. And if you do, that's also fine because I'm still reusing Ziploc bags in the freezer for all the strawberries we just picked, for example, all went into Ziploc bags and are in the freezer, just reuse them. Shop your home. Shop your home first. Look around. What do I have to use? And use that and be okay with that because it's okay to reuse it. it like ugly sustainability. When I first got into sustainability or at least posting about it on Instagram, was like, it was during like the really aesthetic over sat like overexposed white flat lay with like eucalyptus leaves and bamboo times. And that's like not what my house looks like at all. You know, I'm out here with Ziploc bags on the clothes line. So I appreciate um when folks share like, yeah, I'm just doing it in this beat up old whatever. And that's totally fine because the most sustainable thing is what you already own. Yes, please do it. Please share it. When I started posting, uh it was the trend of all of your garbage in a mason jar. And I remember seeing that and thinking, I can't do that. My lifestyle is different. So I am bad at sustainability and what I'm doing isn't worth sharing because it's not that. And thankfully, that's not the way it is. What I'm doing is enough and people are relating to that. find it encouraging that what they are doing is also enough. Yeah, that's like, that's my whole vibe. And I think that that's why like we've connected and we talk about this sort of thing a lot is just like, you can only do what you can do. And you're not Jeff Bezos, like you're fine. um Don't feel guilty about the things that you can't do because systems just aren't set up for it. If there's something that it's like, well, I can't do that because okay, fine. That's fine. Let's work on something else. uh Let's take a hard left then into composting. It's just like, wait, I still really want to talk to you about composting. Because that is something that comes up a lot when I'm talking with folks is composting at home. We do have green bin pickup here where I live. And so a lot of people just do that, which is awesome that we have access to that. You don't necessarily, if you live in an apartment building or a condo, so like vertical living here because it's private pickup. It's not municipal pickup at those properties. so they don't necessarily have green bin access. like the countertop composters are cool and everything, but what about just having a bin in your backyard? Like is it, I know you're a master composter. that, is that true? I'm retaking the course right now because I took it seven years ago, but I asked to take it again and luckily I was able to. It's in higher demand now, which is amazing. It's so fun. Solid waste educators are such an amazing resource. So I'm actually, I'm doing it now. So I'm learning about our local waste sorting systems. um And then I get to go tour the waste facilities next weekend or the weekend after. I was in BC two weeks ago and I got to tour the landfill there and it was mind blowing. But yes, backyard composting is amazing and it's so rewarding when you eventually get to pick up soil that you have made and it's nutrient rich and bioavailable and you're like, this is good dirt. I feel like such a witch when I like, made this. made it. It's so, yeah. And I've never had an issue. like, I live in Toronto, the raccoon capital of the universe and they've never broken into my bin. It doesn't smell. The only issue I've ever, ever had is we do a lot of tomato canning in the fall. And so I take the, we have a machine that like puts the scraps in the seeds. remove some. And I threw all of that. I usually put it in the municipal bin. I don't know why this year I was like, I'm going to put it in the backyard composter, even though it's really wet. I'll just put a bunch of Browns in there. And I have volunteer tomato plants coming out of everywhere. I have like a forest of tomato, like Roma tomato plants in one bed. Now I'm like, I'm just going to leave it. It's just going to be an experiment. I'm going to see what happens, but you do get the volunteer plants. But yeah, has that changed how you think about food waste and your household habits as well, like doing this, the composting class? yeah, yeah. I just, I love it so much. And it's, I'm still learning things, taking it, but also like Halifax, Nova Scotia is a waste leader. They're doing such a good job that there's always new information and new extended producer responsibility, new things being captured, new technology at the facilities. it's... it's really interesting to learn about because everyone generates waste. Everyone is disposing of something and it goes somewhere. So our landfill, um you can take a tour, a group of five or more people, you can go and take a tour. So for my birthdays, for our birthdays and our family, we do experiences rather than gifts. So I take my family to the landfill and I make them tour the landfill. even they find it really interesting because know, they go home and they're like, I have this plastic fork and now I know exactly where it's going. So I'm going to use this metal fork. that there is no such thing as a way. think about that Annie Leonard quote all the time. Like there is no such thing as a way. It must go somewhere. And it's not out of sight, of mind. No, and there's a person that has to deal with it here. Like hands on, it's all human sorted. So like somebody has to deal with your waste. And the folks who live around the landfills have to deal with it and all of that. So like these things are multi-layered. And if we just think beyond our own trash can, I think that can really, really change our habits. beyond the trash can. We have worms, so we have vermi compost as well, which eat a lot. That's amazing. And the chickens, so they turn over my compost. You mean like they dig through it? Like an open file. I do. Yeah. Well, it's it's a four-sided, it's a palette. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that. And the chickens are in there all the time. So they turned over quite a bit for me, but they also eat a ton of our food waste. And then you get fertilizer from that and eggs. We're not allowed to chickens in my town. It's very sad. Yeah. You can in the neighboring town, but it's like a whole rigmarole. Like any money that you share a fence line with has to approve you getting chickens. And there was another resolution that went before our town council, I think in like 2020, 2021 in the bad times. And it failed by one vote. So. Yeah, it's just one those things where you have to keep agitating and turning up to town council meetings and advocating for the kind of community that you want to have. Cause I'd love to say, bring me all your compost. And here's something I wonder no illusions that raising chickens is easy or cheap. oh It's not cheap. But like that stewardship of looking after something and being self-sustainable is such a step in the direction of tending to the land and being sustainable and connecting to nature. Because if you don't care about it, you're not going to deal with it. You're not going to have action towards looking after it. So you mentioned earlier, I just want to touch on this connecting with nature piece. I wanted to ask you about your thousand hours outside. So if you could just tell folks what that is and how you do it with your family. Yeah. So our goal is a thousand to spend a thousand hours outside and we start in January. And this year we actually increased it to 1200 hours outside because we've done a couple of years of a thousand successfully and reached it by like August. we wanted to challenge ourselves. So I homeschool and so I, like my day looks like I work from 4.30 in the morning until 6.30. and then make the breakfast, do the things, pack the lunches. And we are outside from 10 to four, 10 to three, in a way that is just very like, and without a plan, we just go and we just are, and you can discover and engage with nature and build those curiosities and those connections and that relationship with nature and learning about it by being in it. and realizing that you are part of it. And those natural curiosities, you can kick that door wide open and learn about so much just from being outside and observing. it's, yeah, I just love being outside. We're out there all the time. Me too. I tried to do that with my kids. are now teenagers. uh So it's a little more tricky, but it works every time. When anybody's, know, dysregulated or whatever's going on, it's just like go outside and add water. Yeah. Yeah. Put them in water or go outside. if they're bouncing off the walls, take away the walls. Yep. Like it makes, it makes everybody feel better. Be outside. I love that. Yeah. I love, like I try to settle into it. I don't want to drop by outside. I don't want to, if I have 20 minutes for a walk for the dog, that's great. But like, I really value going out there at 10 o'clock in the morning and just being out there until it's time to come home. That's what we're meant to do. Feels right. All right, so at the end of every episode, I like to close with a segment that I call one small shift. I think that all of this can be very overwhelming and we all want to do 500 things. But if you could suggest just one small shift that you've made that's had a big impact in your sustainability journey or something that someone could take away from this conversation, a swap they could make, hint. that could help sort of move them forward on this. That's a really good question because you're right. It's so overwhelming and especially on social media. So pause the scrolling because you go on social media and it is link, link, buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell. And it is so overwhelming because you put your phone down and it's like 50 ideas, 50 marbles rolling around your head. So for me, I tried to eliminate the noise of that pressure. And I think number one, use what you have. Look around you, shop your home. And number two, if it's not too on the nose, beeswax wraps are really easy, like on ramp on to being more sustainable because it's something that you can use in the kitchen, camping, put your pens in it, in your book bag, put your cutlery in your book bag. Do you eat lunch? Put it in your lunchbox. Do you have food in your fridge? Cover it with a wrap. twist ties for cables and plants. Like it's just one small thing that is able to reduce single use plastics and they last and you can look after them. They're always in my top five swaps. And I mentioned this before, but Chelsea makes the best ones on Playnter. Thank you for me. And I have one bonus question before I let you go. We are both huge fans of RuPaul's Drag Race. I have to ask you, who is your all time favorite queen? I um Jimbo King here last year and I didn't know and I found out too late and I would have loved to see Jimbo with the baloney. my God. I just, I love, I love the whole thing, but yeah, Fangee is so funny. Yeah. Love. Awesome. Okay. Well, protect the dolls. yeah. Chelsea, this has been such a joy. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your brain with us today. And before we go, where can folks mind you and follow along with Hive to Home? Oh, I have the website, www.hive2tohomens.com. And then I'm on Facebook and Instagram, Instagram mostly, all the other social medias. I try to be easy to find. Hive2Home. And I'll put those down in the show notes for everybody too. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really loved that conversation with Chelsea and I hope it got you thinking about your own food storage habits too. If you're ready to take a closer look at your food waste habits, I put together a digital guide called A Beginner's Guide to a Sustainable Kitchen and it's all about low effort ways to prevent food waste before it starts, including tips for meal planning, grocery shopping and how to store almost everything without plastic, including in the freezer. So I'll drop the link and a discount code for that in the show notes. And if you're looking for more practical tips, low waste ideas, or just want to keep the conversation going, you can find more at my blog at sustainable in the suburbs.com. You can sign up for my newsletter while you're there and all of that's linked for you in the show notes too. Thanks again for listening and I'm so glad you're here until next time start where you are. Use what you have and live a little greener. Thanks for tuning in to Sustainable in the Suburbs. Every small step adds up and I'm so glad we're doing this together. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. You can find me at sustainableinthesuburbs.com or at Sarah Robertson Barnes on all the things. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have and live a little greener.