Tuesday 9 May 2017

My quest to be plastic free

There has been a lot in the media recently about the rising global problem of waste plastic. According to the Sky Ocean Rescue documentary, over eight million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean each year, killing sea life. Now new evidence says it's entering our food chain with unknown health effects. You can watch the Sky Ocean Rescue documentary here.

The Marine Conservation Society are running a plastic challenge in June to see if we can live without single use plastic for an entire month. I have decided to take up this challenge. 




I made this decision on a bit of a whim and have since done quite a bit of reading and researching. Firstly, learning about the different types of plastics. I was clueless! I knew that our local council doesn't recycle coloured plastic, such as those annoying brown plastic tubs supermarkets insist on putting mushrooms in (Why??? Just why? Do mushrooms take offence to clear plastic??!!!) but I didn't really understand the reasons behind it. It turns out that there are several types of plastic, some much worse than others.



Ok. So I am going to focus as much as possible on the bad guys: types 3, 4, 6 and 7. Now I find myself scouring packaging in my home to see what plastic it is! 

I currently grocery shop online each week (hitting the supermarket with two kiddies under 4 is not my idea of fun!) and spend between £70 and £100, depending on if I have run out of bigger items, such as laundry powder, stain remover etc, which I buy in the bigger packs as it's cheaper per kg. I'd really like to stay within this budget when I make alternative plastic free purchases. My groveries arrived yesterday, so before putting things away I had a good look at it all and was really quite shocked at how much single use plastic there was! 


This is my grocery shop for the week. I may top up on milk and bread, but this is it. I already menu plan and buy accordingly, as I hate wasted food. I do admit that I buy a lot of frozen veg for this very reason. The amount of half eaten broccoli or cabbage that got thrown away was ridiculous! But these all come in plastic bags of course. Not good for my challenge..... Maybe I should buy fresh, chop it up and freeze it myself in a non plastic container, or at least not a single use container.....

After putting my groceries away I realised exactly how much unnecessary single use plastic I had bought, even before I had eaten any of the food!!. The small pile on the left could be recycled but the pile on the right is not recyclable and would end up in landfill. This was just around fruit and veg and holding multipacks together. I'm collecting all this non recyclable waste to see exactly how much I do create. Time to seriously change my way of approaching my shopping....



I have a bit of time before the challenge begins in June to source alternatives for my most common consumable plastic terrors.  Just from this week's shop, I already know that I can easily change the following that came wrapped in plastic:

  • multipack of baked beans
  • apples
  • bananas
  • nectarines
  • potatoes
  • brown onions
  • mushrooms
  • beef mince
  • chicken thighs
  • chipolata sausages
  • fish pie mix 
  • frozen butternut squash
  • frozen green beans
  • frozen broccoli
  • frozen cauliflower
  • frozen parsnips
That's quite a lot already and a good place to start. 

Today, after I dropped E off at preschool, R and I went to check out a local butcher and greengrocer. I was completely expecting it to be ridiculously expensive. I went armed with my list of price per kg for my meat, fruit and vegetables. This was what I found:

  • mince
    • £7.38/kg supermarket (with 12% fat content)
    • £7.20/kg butcher (<10% fat)
  • chicken thighs (boneless and skinless)
    • £5.63/kg supermarket
    • £4.40/kg butcher (free range)
  • chipolatas
    • £6.00/kg supermarket
    • £7.45/kg butcher (I need to investigate the meat % in this comaprison)
  • pork fillet
    • £7.00/kg supermarket
    • £9.30/kg butcher and was also prepacked in plastic wrap
  • mushrooms
    • £2.88/kg supermarket
    • £0.86/kg greengrocer (really???!!!)
  • broccoli
    • £1.25/kg supermarket (but no option to get it witout a plastic film around it!!!)
    • £2.83/kg greengrocer (why so expensive I wonder???)
  • cauliflower
    • 95p each supermarket
    • 89p each greengrocer
  • nectarines
    • £2.00/kg supermarket
    • 39p each (must get a weighed comparison for these)
  • apples
    • £1.56/kg supermarket
    • £1.87/kg greengrocer
  • bananas
    • £0.73/kg supermarket
    • £1.29/kg greengrocer
  • grapes
    • £3.60/kg supermarket
    • £4.07/kg greengrocer
  • carrots
    • £1.40/kg supermarket
    • £0.86/kg greengrocer
  • brown onions
    • £0.75/kg supermarket
    • £0.86/kg greengrocer
  • potatoes
    • £0.64/kg supermarket
    • £0.64/kg greengrocer (no plastic bag wins for me!)
  • kiwi fruit
    • 8.5p each supermarket (6 prepacked in a plastic tub and net)
    • or 37.5p each ready to eat supermarket (4 on a plastic tray and covered in plastic film)
    • 29p each greengrocer 
I must say that I am pleasantly surprised. I had a chat with the lady at the butcher about my plastic challenge. She said she would be happy to use my own containers or paper bags if I brought them. I will definitely be getting my meat from there next week. I left feeling rather pleased with myself!! 

Another avenue of investigation yesterday was alternatives to shampoo. Many suggestions went straight to Lush, as marketed as an ethical company and if you buy from the shops, they cut straight from the bar etc, so you can take soap etc home without packaging. However, I have learnt that they are not as squeaky clean or green as they claim. Many of their products contain chemical nasties, as you can read about here and here. However, a fabulous blog by a lady called Claudi, who lives in Stroud, pointed me in the direction of a company called Wild Sage & Co, who make a rosemary and lavender shampoo bar, without the nasties. 


Wild Sage & Co come to a local farmer's market once a month so I will be heading there at the start of June to try out some plastic free shampoo! It's £4.50 a bar, but is supposed to last quite a while and it's not that much more than my regular shampoo. If you are local to Bristol, you can find details of the BS5 Market on their Facebook page.


Well, that's currently as far as I have come on my journey towards less single use plastic waste. I'll keep you updated! I'm going to be looking to find a bulk bin dry goods store, to see if I can get pasta and rice without plastic packaging, but still within my budget. Anyone else up for the #plasticchallenge? Let me know any other ways I can avoid the plastics!

Much love
xx