The plastic-free challenge - we can no longer buy The Guardian

Mr Pitt's Parmesan Bites with Chilli and Rosemary

So, after feeling the glow of success last Saturday, we went out on a mission to acquire more good quality plastic tubs to continue our naked shopping.  Senior Daughter is also keen to join in even while living away, so we will be needing lots more re-fillable pots to manage our mission.

We also needed butter, cheese, toothpaste and some small round batteries for our kitchen scales.

The butter we buy is wrapped in paper, so there's no change there at this stage as although our aim is to reduce single use anything, we are at the moment concentrating on plastic.  We headed to the market with a suitable cheese sized plastic tub to see if there was a cheese stall.  No luck there, so we decided to give Waitrose a try.  We did come away with a chunk of cheese in our plastic container but the young lady who served us looked a little perplexed and it took some explaining that we didn't want any plastic packaging in the box with it.  She used a sheet of plastic to hold the cheese while she cut it and to transfer it to our box.  I think she then threw away that sheet of plastic. However, if we hadn't taken our own container, not only would the cheese have remained wrapped in the sheet of plastic, it would have been placed inside another plastic bag, so at least we are saving on waste if not entirely.

The toothpaste, however, was our first failure.  Dental hygiene is a big worry for people and I had done a little Internet research about alternatives to toothpaste in plastic tubes.  I occasionally use LUSH toothy tabs, which I really like and I always use these when travelling.  As I understand it they are basically toothpaste in solid form.  They are packaged in recycled cardboard, which itself is recyclable.  I have probably been using them on and off for about a year, but unless I use them consistently and completely ditch the tube toothpaste then I won't really know if I pass the dental check.  So, I've decided to try to be more consistent on my use of the toothy tabs.  I realised that one thing that stops me is that I haven't been keeping them in the bathroom for fear they will get wet.  So my plan is to find a small jar to keep them in, so they stay dry and are always to hand.  Old habits die hard, they do say, and sure enough I find myself reaching for the toothpaste tube more often than not.

The batteries for the scales were another fail! They had a small plastic bubble to keep them in place on a piece of card.  However, we do want to get our scales back into use and return the ones we had to hastily borrow from my Dad on Christmas Eve, when ours packed up.

The next challenge, I think is going to be cat food.  We did a bit of research, to see if we could find a local bulk buy place where we could fill our own container, but no joy.  We looked at brands like Go-Cat that come in a cardboard box, but the meat content is around 3.8% rather than 38% like our current brand.  My thought so far is to switch to the Countrywide own brand which comes in a no-nonsense clear plastic bag, which would be recyclable, or washable and reusable if opened carefully.  It seems to have largely the same ingredients as the current cat food.  I've got a couple of days to make a decision. In the meantime, I would be grateful for any suggestions.

I'm also on the lookout for somewhere to buy frozen peas in my own container. So far, we have just done without, but we are missing our peas :(

Last but not least - we realised we can no longer buy The Guardian at the weekend as it comes wrapped in plastic. NO OTHER NEWSPAPER on the shelf in Waitrose had a plastic wrapper so why does The Guardian feel it is necessary?  I'm sad about that, but I'm sure the unread sections of the stash of Guardian's we already have will keep us going for a while.

To date the 2015 Pitt purchased plastic tally is this:

2 toothpaste tubes with lids
2 plastic bubbles from the battery packaging.

Just how much plastic do we need in one bathroom?

I came across this campaign today run by The Story of Stuff.

http://act.storyofstuff.org/page/s/microbeads-5gyres?utm_source=SOSsocial&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=Microbeads-Natl


I had no idea until I read this that things like face cream might contain tiny beads of plastic.  These plastic microbeads are abrasive and so are used as an exfoliant, to wash away the dead skin particles.  Yes wash away.  There lies the problem.  These particles are, by design, made to be washed down the drain, which means they are going to end up as pollutants.  Did no one think about that as a problem when they came up with the idea?

Our consumer culture is doing us no favours as well as harming the environment.  People invent these things, without thinking through the consequences for the environment.  That's why it is so important that we help the next generation to see the effect on the environment as being the most important part of any business or product.  'Do no harm' needs to be at the forefront of our minds as we find, develop and trial new things.

I hate the thought that many of us who care about the environment may have been using such harmful products without realising.

It makes me wary of buying any cosmetics.

At the beginning of this year my sister asked me to help her with a clear out of some cupboards.  She said she'd 'got it down to three boxes of odds and ends' that she couldn't face going through and knew that she'd likely have put it all in the bin if she didn't have a zero waste sister!  I sorted through the boxes and found homes for everything - mainly through reuse and recycling schemes run by charities.

But I did bring home a bag full of various cosmetic products - bottles of shampoo, conditioner, shower gel - some half full, some with just a small amount in.  I did suggest to her that she could use these up and then recycle the bottles in the normal curb side recycling collection.

"But I've got a bathroom full of the stuff already!" she protested.

So I said I'd use it up myself.  I used to think I was frugal about making sure I use every bit of a product, even rinsing out the bottle as the last use of it.  The more you use up and the longer you make it last, the better - I think - as all these things take energy and raw materials to make and transport to the end user.  But when I got back home and looked at what I had in my own bathroom, I was dismayed to realise just how many plastic bottles with varying amounts of content I had accumulated.

So, I made a pledge to not buy any more cosmetic products until I have nothing left.  We're now in June, I've bought nothing, yet I still have a whole tub full of cosmetics.  I may well get to the end of the year without buying any more, and when I do finish up my current stock and recycle all those plastic bottles, I'll be thinking very carefully about what I buy in future.

I don't know if the products I already have contain plastic within them.  How do I find out if they do, I wonder?  And if they do… what do I do with them?

All these cosmetics are staying in the plastic tub.  They are coming out one product at a time and being used up before selecting the next one.  I guess that means I can be careful to read what's in them (if I can read the tiny print) but what do I do if I don't like what I find?  It seems I can make no difference now, having bought or acquired the stuff.  It just goes to show how important it is that businesses are ethical and considerate in their research and development, because once something is made - it is sometimes too late to undo the harm.

Recycling your mascara

I don't do landfill.

But even in West Oxfordshire, where there is a fantastic kerbside collection for most packaging, there are still sometimes things that can't be collected by the local council for recycling.

So, what to do with them?

I have a policy that, unless I really feel I need something, I will avoid it if I don't know how I can recycle or reuse it at the end of its life.

But, I have a family and I have friends, and thats' not a rule that is always at the forefront of the mind of everybody who has cause to dispose of something while in my house.

So, I have a little collection in my 'recycling cupboard' of things I don't know what to do with.

One of those things, until recently was cosmetics packaging.  The problem with cosmetics packaging is that it is often made of mixed materials, and often made in part of hard plastic, two things that make it hard to recycle.


So I was excited to find out that the cosmetics company Origins have set up a recycling scheme at their cosmetics counters.  The great thing about their scheme is that you can recycle any cosmetics packaging through them, not just their own packaging.

So, I used the locator on their website to find out where their nearest collection point was and then planned to go there yesterday after a meeting I had nearby.  I had a fairly large bag of various packages - my own, Senior Daughter's, Junior Daughter's and JD's best friend.  So I felt the extra mile to pop in to the town centre was well worth it, and I was rewarded with a free sample of Origins products, Recyclebank rewards (and a warm, smug feeling from doing my bit for the planet).  I'd recommend it!