Weekly weigh in 29
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Wahee! After a couple of rubbish weeks, we’re holding our heads high today.
In the bin this week we have the plastic from a bread wrapping. I went into the farm shop to buy a couple of things and they were giving away three baguettes with every order, regardless of what you bought. Little Miss Green adores this type of bread and I’m usually too miserly to buy it (especially as it nearly always comes in plastic wrap), but they were giving it away and who was I to say no?
I was going to keep the bag for reuse, but it wasn’t actually much good. It was one of those fancy packs which is half paper, half plastic with tiny holes in it, so I separated the two materials, chucked the paper in the recycling and put the plastic in the landfill.
Mr Green had one of his cleaning moments and sorted the herbs and spices shelves in the kitchen. We found three empty jars; so the glass was recycled, but as any Schwartz fan will be aware, the tops are non-identifyable plastic. I’ll be contacting them this week to find out what it is and how I deal with it, but for now the lids are in the bin.
The only other thing was a lentils bag, which I am informed by Waitrose is non-recyclable. That was it!
This week’s weigh in is a measly 22gms; there are true zero waste celebrations going on here this week!
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Hi Mrs Green,
22g is a fine effort with a few plastic packaging die-hards. More good alternatives are sure to arise in the coming months.
With the impact of the credit crunch increasing next year, we shall have to consider the cost of Zero Waste. My intention is to finish the year ignoring the “crunch” but from January 1 cost will be an issue.
Container use is economic as is most unpackaged. One example of a cost issue is brown bread. With unpackaged there will be fewer slices though I use single slices for lunch. There will be other cases and it will be difficult where costs are excessive.
I agree with John, apart from bulk, it is often more expensive to buy package-free products because they are often fancier.
Good job on your weigh in though. 22g is impressive!
Great work on the zero waste weekly weigh in!
John, a good solution, I’ve found, is making my own food whenever possible. For instance, all the ingredients for making bread come in recyclable packages, except for the yeast(which I only have to buy like twice a year). Same goes for yogurt…my area won’t recycle the containers, but they will recycle milk containers, so my yogurt is very nearly zero waste.
Hi John and Jen; we’ll all need to be looking at ways to combine zero waste with cost effectiveness I think. This will make for some (hopefully) interesting posts in the new year. I like combining frugal with zero waste because it is a win-win. It is one of the first questions we get asked – whether or not a zero waste lifestyle is more expensive; so I shall be doing some focused posts on this topic.
As Kristen points out (thank you Kristen!) making food from scratch is a great way to reduce costs and packaging.
That’s a good total this week and I’m glad to hear you are feeling positive.
I had a nice chat yesterday with some folk in Cheltenham Town Centre who were promoting Gloucestershire’s Zero Waste Week and getting people to sign-up and find out more. They also had beautiful jute bags and recipe books to hand out so hope they managed to attract lots of interest.
Woo-hoo!! 22g is great!!
I *wish* more companies used zero waste packaging!!
I mean, humankind existed 100000s of years without plastic bags!!
hmm.. what are the odds for buying in bulk together with a few friends and then dividing (in jute or other cloth bags.. hmm..)
Hi Kris, Oooo, good to hear about promotions for zero waste week. I was a bit disappointed to see just a few lines in the local paper this week – it really should be a major story **sigh**. Still, getting out into the community and talking to people is a good way to generate more interest.
Layla, you’re right; we have existed for a long time with out plastic, BUT we didn’t have access to some of the things we now take for granted, such as food from the other side of the world all year round or ‘disposable electronics’ as I call them. We run a food co-op, where we do exactly that – we buy in bulk and share things out. You did still end up with SOME packaging, but most of it is polythene which can be sent back to the co-op for reuse / recycling. Do you have anything like that over there?