Shopping Naked

It has been maybe ten years now that the Pitt family have only needed to put their 'general waste' bin out for collection once or twice in a year and even then it hasn't had much in it.  This was the photo of our entire residual waste for 2013.

Residual Waste for 2013

Now, it helps, of course, living in West Oxfordshire, where there really isn't very much at all that can't be recycled in your kerbside collection boxes - and they even take flyaway plastics as long as they are bagged up so they don't fly away during the collection process.  I've also actively taken steps to think about my residual waste each year and have tried to avoid buying things that can't be reused, recycled, composted or burnt on my stove - or things that have packaging that can't be recycled, reused etc.  And I've done that for a while now, so zero waste has become a habit.

But, this morning I put out four black boxes each of which was fairly full of recyclables. I'm pretty sure I put out four boxes, if not five, the week before and similar the week before that.  That's a lot of packaging for one family.  I have taken in the recycling from the cricket club annual dinner and we also had a rather large 18th birthday party, but it really has none-the-less got my attention. So I decided that over the next few weeks I'm going to really try hard to reduce the amount of packaging I amass.

We have for a long time bought much of our fruit and vegetables loose and last year I converted a patch of garden to grow salad herbs in order to provide unpackaged salad leaves.  My local butcher will accept my various reusable plastic boxes for when I buy meat.  I've been experimenting with making homemade snacks, particularly to reduce food waste as well as to reduce packaging.  But there are still so many things that come in a plastic bag.

I came across this write-up of Whole Foods Markets supermarket chain on the plasticisrubbish.com blog and it dawned on me that on one of my now very occasional journeys that I still make by car I drive right past the one in Cheltenham.  So today, I went prepared with a reusable shopping bag and my tiny bag of 'Onya Weigh Bags' - which are reusable, washable very lightweight mesh bags and checked out the Cheltenham branch of Whole Foods Market.

The selection of fruit and veg looked very inviting, but I had come to investigate those cupboard store ingredients like dried fruit, cereals, rice and pasta that are rarely found sold loose.

I came away with the following haul:

1. UK sourced jumbo oats at £1.09/kg.  The last box of oats I bought - because it was the only one I could see that was UK sourced with entirely recyclable packaging - is currently £2.70/kg in Sainsbury's.

2. Organic arborio rice £2.99/kg.  The last box I bought was priced at £2.20/kg from Sainsbury's.

3. Brown basmati rice at £2.39/kg.  Sainsbury's brown basmati rice is £1.80/kg

4. Organic raisins £5.99/kg. Sainsbury's organic raisins are £5.00/kg but the raisins I usually buy there are £3.00/kg.

5. Dry roasted peanuts £5.39/kg.  The cheapest dry roasted peanuts in Sainsbury's are £4.40/kg but I wouldn't buy them as the packaging isn't recyclable even in West Oxfordshire.  The ones I'd likely buy were £6.70/kg.

Price wise, it seems you win some you loose some.  If I'd bought around a kilo of each item then given the 30p discount Whole Foods Market gave me for using my own bags then I paid £1.15 more than I'd have paid buying what I'd normally buy at Sainsbury's or 85p less if I'd have chosen organic raisins.  I did a taste test on the raisins I had left at home and the ones I'd just bought and the latter were definitely tastier.  I doubt that's just down to freshness as raisins don't last long in our house.

So price-wise I felt it was ok and quality wise and packaging wise I'd give it top marks.  I love the fact that I would soon know exactly how much I can buy to fill my storage containers for each item and I loved the fact that I was left with no packaging to recycle.  I also cheekily took the opportunity to check out my Onya bags on the scales compared to the paper bags the shop provides and my Onya bags weighed a tiny bit less.  I will be shopping there again next time I pass.

I was only disappointed that there was no bulk buy plastic free pasta.  So it looks like I will have to try and make my own :)

Zero Waste Week 2014 - Day 2

Day Two of my big clear out….

Today it is time to tackle the utility room… ahh! I knew this would be a tough one, so I had a little look before breakfast to get an idea of what I'd be up against.

This room gets treated as a bit of a dumping ground.  Does anyone else have that problem?

We went to a lot of effort last year to tidy it up and sort everything out and we tried to get rid of the stuff we never used. We came to the realisation that Mr Pitt is a bit of an Imelda Marcos, but we persuaded him to part with three bags of shoes and as a result the shelves are are lot more organised.

However, I still found a nice stash of textiles of various sorts, particularly odd socks awaiting attention on top of the washing machine.

 I managed to rescue a few pairs of socks and I've added the rest of the odd socks to the rag bag.

This pile of jackets needed attention too.  How many sets of gardening clothes does one need, after all? I washed the jackets and decided three of them were only fit for the rag bag, but the others are now dried and hung back up ready for chilly days in the garden.  Among these, I found my favourite fleece jacket, which had been abandoned  after getting covered in burdock.  As this week is all about giving things attention, I decided to invest the time picking out the burs from the fabric.  The only solution!

It took me about about 15 minutes, but the jacket is now good as new and back in my wardrobe.

The one thing I'm left with now is this saddle.  It needs a clean (and I'm going to try to bring myself to do that this evening), but once it is cleaned, what can I do with it?  Does anyone have any ideas how to part with an old saddle?  Could be a tall order!

Onto the the daily email all about swapping disposables for reusables.  I have to say, I'm not one who is going to be swapping to reusable toilet roll, lovely as it looks.  I have a septic tank, and just like a compost heap it needs 'brown' and 'green' contributions to keep it healthy.  The 'brown' contribution is, in fact, the toilet roll,  and the 'green' contributions,well that's the … you know!

However, I am going to play swapsies!  Firstly, I'm going for reusable sanitary pads.  I've already given them a try, so today I've ordered everything I need from Made by Gituce.  Previously I burnt our sanitary pads in the wood-burner, so it is not going to reduce my landfill.  But it is far better to reuse than to burn resources and for a little outlay today, I reckon I'll be making savings within a year.

The next thing I'm going to work on is razors, as that's something that does end up in our landfill bin at the end of the year.  I'm still undecided as to what exactly to get. Can anyone suggest an alternative to disposable razors that work well for teenage girls?

Oh yes!  The crisps didn't happen last night after all, but they did happen today, and they are going down very nicely right now!

Junior Daughter was first taster and the conversation went like this:

Me: "So, are they alright?"
JD: "They're lush!"
Me:"Really?"
JD:"Anything home made always tastes better."
Me:"Why is that?"
JD: "I don't know, but I think it must be the little spoonful of love that you added."

Homemade crisps