Third week of Plastic Free July #pfjuk
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Welcome to week 3 of my Plastic Free July challenge.
You might remember that I didn’t feel I could take on the whole challenge.
So I pledged to buy all fruits and vegetables naked throughout the month as this is a habit that has crept back in recently…
The first two weeks went brilliantly.
During week one I was able to get everything I needed locally from farm shops.
During week two, lady luck shone upon me – my neighbour went away and asked me to take anything I wanted from the garden.
This week, however, I’m hanging my head in shame.
It’s the usual story – the week got busy, clients needed my attention which meant shopping didn’t get my attention until my stomach intervened.
Finally Mr Green and I succumbed to an online order because we couldn’t find time to go out and replenish our stores.
So here’s my fruit and vegetables for the week:
Not so good is it?
In a bid to try and do SOMETHING right I spent this morning planning ahead to ensure there is no food waste.
I have ANOTHER busy week coming up and I know I’m in danger of letting some of this stuff go off before I get around to using it.
So I took the peas, sprouts, kale and leeks and split them into four bags which are now in the freezer.
These bags are my ‘homemade instant soup’ mix bags to which I shall add a small potato and half a tin of chickpeas or some lentils for one of my favourite soups.
At least I won’t end up kale that looks like THIS:
How about you – have you managed to avoid plastic waste this month?
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Don’t feel bad as I also succumbed to the inevitable “plastic monster” but a week before you did. It seems that plastic wrappers are one of the great inevitabilities of life. I really don’t blame the consumer, as we all have eat, and therefore to shop at the grocery store, but at least we can give it our best effort. You do deserve a pat on the back, I will say in conclusion to this post.
I am finding the plastic challenge a bit of a mission impossible. The problem is that I am not a motorist (I prefer to walk everywhere) but due to back problems I have to get most of my shopping online and delivered. My delivery people have the tendency to be a little overly generous when it comes to plastic bags, sometimes it gets to the point where they’re using one bag per item, which is extremely wasteful but they do collect them for recycling. However, when I have to go out and shop I usually use a reusable bag. I used to try and reuse plastic bags for other uses such as refuse bags for throwing out unrecyclable packaging but can’t do that anymore as I recently got a peddle bin to keep my dog out of the trash, plastic bags won’t fit over the peddle bin, DOH!.
Have you checked out Beth Terry’s blog Plastic Free Life? She’s got some tips, even with shipping. As for shipped produce, sometimes if you just ask before or as you’re placing the order they can skip bagging. We order from a farm collective where I suspect the bagging is just an extra step and cost for them.
An Ocado food delivery van followed us down the road home the other day. Better half (get that – not me!) pointed out that I would like what it said on the front of the bonnet. Something about giving the bags back to the driver! Way-hey! Mwa. However we still need to get people to learn to use fewer of them and to ask before they put purchases in them.
Ocado will take any plastic carrier bags, not just Ocado ones.