People who leave the foil on: why are you like this?
Whether they’re housemates, colleagues or partners: I find people who don’t remove the foil from a tub of hummus, butter, Nutella, peanut butter or whatever intensely irritating. Because: why do you leave it on?!?!
I’m absolutely in favour of a world with less plastic, but if there’s one thing I can understand, it’s that manufacturers stretch a sheet of plastic over their product to protect it from leaks and keep it fresh for longer. That’s also a form of sustainability, after all. And hygiene—also very important.
From ‘nice and taut’ to ‘gross flappy thing’
What I absolutely do not understand, on the other hand, is that people open that sheet at home (and even worse: at work), stopping just short of removing it completely. So they can dig into the product with their knife—let’s imagine a tub of hummus for convenience—spread it on their bread and then drape that previously so neatly taut plastic sheet back over the tub as a loose flappy thing, put the lid on and leave it like that.
Why tell me why?
Can someone tell me what the point of that is? Because unless it’s to treat the person after you to a little game of ‘fishing plastic out of your hummus’, followed by ‘dirty fingers and a hummus smear on the table’, I genuinely have no idea.
Well, actually, I do have one idea: laziness. Too lazy to pull the plastic off in one go and throw it in the bin. Too lazy to realise that you’re now leaving it for the person after you, for whom you’re also making it a dirtier and more difficult job.
Or am I missing something, and does it actually serve a purpose?
The Nutella struggle
Now, there is one foil seal where I can somewhat understand that you really can’t be bothered. It takes so much effort to open properly that you’re already delighted if you can get your knife (or spoon) into the jar, and the foil remnants are the least of your concerns. I’m of course talking about the foil on a jar of Nutella.
Their gold seal without a tab (?!) is torture. If you don’t get a proper grip on it, you’ll just pull the gold layer off and be left with a paper-like film. And even if you do get a grip, it’s almost impossible to pull the whole thing off in one go. The result: a battlefield full of holes and bits of foil covered in Nutella gunk.
Not fun, but fixable. How? With a sharp knife: cut neatly along the edges, as if you’re using a tin opener. You can also do it with your fingernails, but in an office/housemate/current-corona situation, I wouldn’t exactly recommend that.
Don’t be lazy, throw it away
To cut a long first-world-problem story short: don’t be lazy, throw that plastic sheet away immediately. The Nutella one too. It takes a tiny bit more effort, but it does make the world a slightly nicer place.
Read also:
- Slicing cheese is a delicate matter
- Dear restaurant thieves, stop stealing
- Can we talk about the names of Jamie Oliver’s children?
