Plastic Free July Update: Day 20

The last ten days have not been that successful. There is plastic wrapped around EVERYTHING!!! It's so darn hard to avoid plastic packaging when doing the grocery shop. Here's a list of things I've found that I couldn't find not packaged in plastic: sour cream, cheese, cucumbers (They have a skin! Why do they need to be shrink wrapped??), pre-sliced bread, toothpaste, dog treats (well you probably can but Henry dog has that many allergies & food issues that we're pretty much stuck in what we buy him) and this week we had to buy batteries for the smoke alarms and there's no plastic-free option there either!

To top it off, on about Day 11 or 12 I had to pop to the supermarket for two things. I got chatting to a friend at the checkout and totally didn't see the checkout lady put my two items in a plastic bag until she was handing it to me with my receipt. #fail. I know I could have refused the bag but she was already dealing with the next customer and I didn't want to be 'that' difficult person. 

Fair to say these last ten days have left me feeling a bit depleted of enthusiasm for Plastic Free July. I almost cried at the amount of plastic in our trolley at the last grocery shop. But as Matt pointed out, even if we're not "plastic-free" at least we're so much more conscious of it now and the amount of single-use plastics in our trolley was so much less than previously. Looking for alternatives might also just nudge manufacturers to give us plastic-free choices in the future too!

So instead of focusing on how hard it is to be single-use plastic free, I'll share some of the things we've done in our household to minimise single-use plastics. I think Matt and I have both agreed we're not going to be 100% plastic-free or zero-wasters anytime soon, but we choose to believe that the changes we're making all count. If every household made just a couple of changes it could save millions of pieces of plastic going into our water a year.

Easy changes we've made to reduce single-use plastic:

• Bamboo toothbrushes. We don't tend to think of our toothbrushes being single-use plastic but they are. We bought bamboo toothbrushes from our local New World which are compostable at the end of their brushing life. 
  
  
• Buying pantry items from the bulk buy stores with your own containers. I take my pantry containers in to The Kitchen Cupboard where they weigh them before I top them up with my required ingredients from their bulk bins. Most towns and cities have bulk stores and this is a great way to minimise plastic packaging, plus putting your shopping away is super easy... You simply put your containers back in the pantry!
  
  
• Shampoo & conditioner bars. If you haven't already checked out Ethique (here) you're missing out!
  
  
• Make more things from scratch. Like making your own hand-wash and cleaning sprays (I'll share some of the recipes I've been using soon on the blog). But also making more meals from scratch. We had fallen victim to using flavour packets for quick & easy weeknight meals. We'd buy some chicken and throw in a can of sauce or packet of flavour paste, but we've been trying to make more meals from scratch with raw ingredients, cutting out the plastic packaging and a lot of the additives we don't need in our diets at the same time.
  
  
• Saying no to everyday plastics. It's as simple as using drink bottles instead of buying bottled water. And using my Keep Cup instead of throwaway coffee cups. Refusing plastic straws with your drink. And taking your reusable shopping bags every time you shop.
  
  
• Taking reusable containers to the butcher. Those plastic meat trays add up quickly if you consider that you go through half a dozen every week! And I've noticed that some of those trays don't even have a plastic code number on them which means they're never going to be recycled. This month we've started taking our own containers to the butcher and by-passing all the plastic single-use packaging that comes with retail meat goods. 
  
  
• Using beeswax wraps instead of cling-film. You can read how I made my own beeswax wraps here on the blog.
  
  
• Be more conscious about clothing purchases. I'm taking more time to check that clothes are made of natural fibres when shopping and I've changed out any old dishcloths for 100% cotton options, because every time we wash our clothes and linens small particles go down the drain and if you're using fabric such as polyester that's essential plastic microfibres going down the drain and into our waterways. 

None of this stuff is hard work or expensive. In fact I'd argue that since we've made these changes our grocery bill has remained the same. While some plastic free options are more expensive, we're saving in other areas such as not buying expensive cleaning products anymore or bottled water!

​What changes have you made in your household for reducing plastic waste?