Yvonne Berg
I am thankful for Mason jars.
My favourite is an old one scavenged from an elderly neighbor who was selling her home. It has a glass lid, so technically it's a "lightning jar" not a Mason jar. That lid suggests that it is at least 50 years old.
Half a century of holding cranberry sauce, jams, and pickles. The fruits of summer, preserved to share with family and friends through long Canadian winters.
Would it be a way to create a sustainable economy: to replace the dozens of jars and cans we buy, use, and toss in the recycling with Mason jars? After all, just think of this one jar and the disposable containers it has replaced over the decades.
I'd like to reuse glass jars like we do beer bottles -- it would be much less energy-intensive than recycling glass. But it's hard to imagine consumers being enthusiastic about the idea of paying deposits on every glass jar they buy, and lugging crates of glass back to the store to claim their jar deposit. Or manufacturers liking the idea of forced uniformity. Or Canada, the U.S. and Mexico agreeing to a Mason jar standard.
I can't change the world, that's a pipe dream.
All I can do is what my mother does -- and her mother before her. Make food for my family and seal it in Mason jars, as a way of showing my love for them this Thanksgiving weekend.
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