Day 21 - Recycling Symbols and Petrol Stations

Day 21 

Recycling, what can/ can't be collected in local recycling will depend on where you are in the UK, as it changes from county to county and for those of you further afield may vary quite considerably to this too. My local council will accept a lot of different types of plastics that some councils will not accept, such as plastic shopping bags, which some councils refuse meaning you have to find somewhere else to recycle it.

My council will accept the following plastic recycling:
Plastic packaging (in the photo it has things like yoghurt pots, microwave trays, butter tubs etc).
Carrier bags (pictured shopping bags)
Plastic bottles (minus the lids)

There are however different types of all of these plastics, as some have the 3 arrows recycling symbols but with a number in the middle of it which will tell you the recyclability of that piece of plastic. I've been searching the internet trying to find out if my local recycling will note down which numbers of plastic they will accept in their recycling, however I cannot find it at the moment. It would be useful if they displayed these on their kerbside bins so we know what they definitely will accept and what they don't, so at the moment it does leave the average person somewhat perplexed as to what can be collected or not.

I found this table online that gives you a rough idea of what each of the symbols mean and whether they can be recycled or not. So it looks as though generally my kerbside collection will probably only accept 1,2 and 4 type plastics, and the others become much trickier. If you are concerned about these, it might be wise to contact your local council to try and get an answer for which of these are accepted or not.

Interestingly as well, there are some plastics that have a "recycling logo" but confusingly this may not mean they can be recycled. It actually means that the producer has a financial contribution to the recovery and recycling of the product. Basically meaning it cannot be recycled. I found this on a malteser packet so thought i'd check it and realised I'd been throwing it into the recycling when it shouldn't be going there. So beware of this symbol!

There are some things that can be recycled by the local supermarkets, who accept the carrier bags for recycling, these include: Bread bags, breakfast cereal packets, toilet/kitchen roll wraps, shrink wrap, magazine wraps etc. These can be recycled, however a lot of the time they are reused to make bin bags for the general waste bins, so they'll end up in the landfill anyway, no matter what you do.
Depressing huh?

So this is why it would be better to reduce the plastic used in the first places, rather than trying to deal with the consequences. Saying that, some companies such as Lush do recycle their own pots, which I will go into the next blog.



Petrol  Stations - these are a massive problem in my opinion, the same as any quick, convenient shops as they have almost everything packaged in plastic. Everything. As they are a place for people to stop, grab and go, 98% of the products they have are completely packaged in plastic. Exceptions to these are cans of drinks and maybe apples/bananas if provided. All pastries, sandwiches, and snacks all come wrapped, making it impossible for someone avoiding it to actually buy anything. I've had to go there to get milk for my nan (as she cannot have my amazing raw milk), getting her bread short notice (when she calls me at like 7pm on my way home from work, when there is no chance in hell of a bakery being open) and it's just annoying really.

Who decided plastic was a mark of cleanliness I don't know, but it seems a lot of companies over package their goods, which most of the time is unnecessary and unwanted by the consumer.

Anyhow, until next time!

Thanks for reading.

Day 20 - Convenience Food and Sweet Potato Fries

Day 20

One of the things that has been getting to me is the sheer idea of convenience food, without having to pre-plan anything or make it yourself. It's annoying really that we have become so reliant on food that we can just grab from a shop without any effort into its making what-so-ever. I love that though, which is the annoying thing. Some things i'm hugely missing out on are chocolate, crisps, crackers, biscuits, sweets, yoghurts, cheese, drinks etc. A lot of these you can get alternatives for, but these are in very specific shops, or even online places, and not somewhere you can just grab and go.

I'd like to think I would keep not using a lot of these products after this experiment, however will power can waiver and my stomach may win over my morals. It's just a shame more companies can't supply more products that aren't draped in plastic.

One thing that is pretty easy to make however is sweet potato fries. I love sweet potato in most forms, and as fries they are delicious! I love wedges as well, but the fries are a favourite of mine. Now the only thing about these is having to cut them up, but my friend has a clever little machine specifically for cutting out fries/chips from potatoes, so I've asked her if i can borrow it to make a decent batch of both normal and sweet potatoes so  I can freeze them for quicker use when i come in knackered from work. It's all in the preparation. If you think about it, a few potatoes are much cheaper than a bag of chips, so if you have some time, or one of these machines, then this will help save some time when you're in a hurry. Easy peasy.

Anyhow, until next time.

Thanks for reading.

Day 19 - Homemade Chips and Crisps

Day 19

So I'm regretting  not buying some of those frozen chips from the farm shop, as I have no chips that I can just throw in the oven and I sometimes like to put them in the oven and just relax without worrying about cooking. However pretty much all chips come wrapped in plastic. Yes, even microwavable oven chips as event though they are in a box, they are then wrapped in plastic after. I've done a small search but haven't found any alternative, apart from the farm shop which is a tad far to drive 40 minutes for chips! So in my lacking of chips I've decided to make my own, and I've done it before but It can be a bit annoying, especially if you like smaller fries like me, which takes more cutting. I love my fries skin on so I just cut up a potato into thin pieces, coated with oil and put in  the oven. It took about 30 minutes but they came out great. I've decided to try and do my own frozen ones by doing this and then freezing them, so all they'll need is to be warmed up and Crisped up when I need them. Hopefully that'll work! I also looove sweet potato fries, so I'm going to make a box  of them for the freezer =). I recommend trying  it if you haven't. But making from scratch when you're hungry is a bit long I have to admit.

Crisps. Now that's something i'm very much missing right now. I've stolen the odd crisp from my partner when he's bought some, and I think that one will be pretty hard for me to give up. I am more of a savoury person, so instead of reaching for cake, i'd go for crisps every time. Annoyingly most crisps seem to come protected in plastic. I did know one company called Boxer Chips that I used to sell in a previous job, which were great but the boxes were covered again in plastic. It's a shame because their idea was good - the crisps were in the box, the box would unfold into a small bowl and you could eat them like that, and if inclined, share with friends. I have been told about a company called Brown Bag Crisps, and from their website it does seem like the packaging is just paper, but i'm going to email the company to find out whether this is actually the case, and if it is, how I can get my hands on them. I'm pretty excited about that actually. So fingers crossed. I'm also aiming to make my own potato crisps and vegetable crisps soon, and i've been informed you can do them in the microwave! So that'll be an interesting experiment :). The next time you reach for a bag of crisps in the shop, think of me lol. I like ready salted baked crisps, pickled onion monster munch, skips, discos, sunbites... the list is endless.

Anyhow, until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Day 18 - Water Bottles and Internet Shopping

Day 18

So I realised I have managed to go for 18 days without mentioning one of the biggest topics in plastic free life at the moment, and that is the water bottle. Statics say that the UK uses over 3 billion litres of bottled water every year, which is around 15 million wasted plastic bottles every day! This is an absurd amount of unnecessary plastic used when there are easy alternatives to solve the problem. For one, i'm sorry but if you buy bottled water for your house then you sir are a moron. You have tap water that costs 0.097p a litre, and you could get 1000 litres for just £1. Bottled water will cost you in usual circumstances around 50p-£1 for a 500ml bottle.. If you tally that up how much it would cost you for 1000 litres of bottled water at a rate of 50p per 500ml, then it would cost you £1000 a year just on water. If you were thinking of trying to cut your budget somewhere to save money, and you use bottled water, i'd suggest you cut it here. Tap water is not dirty, it is not dangerous and actually is well filtered by our water boards. A lot of effort goes into supplying fresh, clean tap water for our homes, at such a cheap price too, so you'd be insane not to drink it. Bottled water isn't any better for you than tap water, in fact tap water has a lot of the same elements as bottled water, just in varying ratios across the country, which is why tap water in different places tastes well... different. I have been brought up drinking tap water and i love it. I only ever used to buy bottled water if I really couldn't get tap water safely - going abroad, or at airports/ festivals where there is no where to top up bottles. I have been using my aluminium and stainless steel bottles for a decent amount of time now. I carry them everywhere I go and I use them at work (usually keep 2 in the fridge and 1 with me at all times). I do drink a lot of water as well, I kind of have a problem where i probably drink too much, but i'm always hydrated and it's better than spending money on fizzy drinks or other random drinks. I decided I needed another bottle to take with me on my outings, because I have 3 small 250ml bottles which don't appear to be enough, I could get through those in a couple of hours, so I figured I should buy some bigger ones. I bought a bottle from Amazon which claims to be an eco friendly bottle. It is mostly bamboo and stainless steel, with the most minimal amount of plastic compared to any of the others online. It is super insulated keeping drinks cold for 24 hours and boasts to be leak free. It contains an infuser, so you can make loose leaf tea or fruit drinks, it has a wide top for adding ice to it and best yet has a Lifetime guarantee if you are ever unsatisfied with the bottle at any time. Seems a tad good to be true. It came today and it does look good to me, but I will be putting it to the test and i'll let you know how it goes. If anyone is interested it is by Vireo and is a 400ml - £22.

So basically the moral of this story is buy yourself a reuseable metal bottle, and get drinking tap water to help stop this madness! Also if more places could install water fountains that would be bloody fab! Cheers!

ZSL Zoos are currently running a plastic free bottle campaign, where they have replaced all their single use plastic water bottles with paper bottles, which are much better for the environment. It's a good start and a good way to start raising awareness for people.

So you may have noticed that a lot of this stuff i'm buying i'm having to get on the internet.. Which in itself is causing me some internal quarrels. Yes, I want to buy plastic free, eco friendly amazing products - but NO, i do not want the ridiculous amount of packaging that comes with it (especially plastic). Unfortunately it's annoying, but i've come to the realisation that if I want to buy things that are long lasting, and will do the time, I will have to search further afield than my local area. It does mean more packaging now, but in the long run it will help me replace a lot of the plastic that could have been wasted in things like water bottles, shopping bags etc. I'm not aiming to get everything on the internet either, and smaller companies I am trying to ask that where possible could they avoid plastic for the packaging, which has been okay so far. Places like amazon can be good, but it depends on the products. At least their external packaging is all cardboard and paper.

Anyhow, i'm pretty tired, so until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Day 17 - Vegetable bags and Natracare Tampons

Day 17

So I discovered a bit of a flaw in using paper bags to collect my fruit and vegetables from shops. One, if the veg is chilled and has moisture on it, then the bag would rip easily and i'd be left with a mess at the till; and Two, the paper bags I bought weren't overly large, so I couldn't fit a huge amount in - and heavy things like loose potatoes rip straight through. So I decided to try some cloth bags, but to try to avoid places saying that i'm stealing, I decided I would order some net washing machine bags which are see through, well ventilated, large, durable, washable and have zipped tops so it's easier to move the bags around without a disaster at the check out and the person looking at me like i'm an absolute loon. So i've ordered 3 standard bags, of varying sizes, and also 3 "bra bags" which are smaller little round mesh bags, maybe more suited to small fruits/ tomatoes etc. They are light weight as well, so if they need to weigh them at the till, it would be easy to weigh them in the bags too. So hopefully they'll arrive tomorrow and then I can put them to the test some time soon! I also found these things called origami bags which are cloth sewn with two longer pieces up the sides and created into a pouch. You can fill the pouch and then tie the top up when you're done. They look cool, so i might see if I can make some to try out (as i'm not spending like £5-£7 on a piece of cloth!). Either of these would negate the need for me to use the plastic flimsy bags the supermarkets supply you with in the shop which usually are thrown away relatively shortly to getting home by most people.

I received a tweet response recently from the brand Natracare, basically saying that they'd like to explain the deal with their tampons being wrapped in plastic. They messaged me explaining that because the tampons I bought are without applicator (i purchased these accidentally, which i'm not too happy about) means they have stricter hygiene laws on keeping them bacteria free and safe for the user. They could not be wrapped in wax/paper because if it ripped, it would directly compromise the tampon itself. Whereas their applicator based tampons come wrapped in wax paper, and are much more environmentally friendly, which I can say I will make sure i purchase the right ones in future! They said the plastic used is BPA free (meaning it won't leach any bad chemicals into the tampon) and is "recyclable" - however I have looked into my local recycling and it seems much more difficult to be able to recycle this type of plastic than it does other forms of plastic. I will go over recycling symbols in one of my next blogs because it's interesting how many things can actually be recycled, but obviously not all is accepted in our kerbside waste - therefore mostly doesn't get recycled as most people don't know what to do with certain products. So i would like to thank Natracare for being very prompt and professional in their responses to me.

Anyhow, until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading! (apologies for the delayed blog!) :)

Day 16 - The Butchers and The Weekly Shop

Day 16

Okay so after my realisation that going to Farm Shops for all of my fruit/veg/ meat was quite nice, it also worked out pretty expensive. And if I was going to survive without running out of money and spending it all on food, i decided i needed to be more clever about where I bought my goods. Luckily 5 minutes drive around the corner from me is a small town centre and I'm kinda luckily to live in a not so well off area, so everyone really is looking to get everything as cheap as they can - especially when it comes to food. I decided to arm myself with a cool-box to keep anything I had cool, as I also planned on going to get the milk from that farm (which is a bit more expensive, but i love that milk so i'm not giving that up too!). My first stop was the butchers. I walked in and asked straight away if I could take the stuff in my own box without plastic and I was met with a confused face and the statement "why wouldn't i let you take it in your own box?". I explained to the lady the issues I had with the supermarkets and she honestly couldn't believe their responses to my needs. Our butchers isn't overly expensive either, far cheaper than the farm shop and the quality of the meat from there is phenomenally better than the stuff you get at the supermarkets anyway. So i bought 12 rashers of bacon and 2 minted lamb chops - as they are my partners favourite.

So after this I went a couple of shops down to see if I could get some salmon from a fishmonger/ newsagent type shop. On the way in I noticed they did a large variety of fruit and veg, most in bowls that were a £1 each - slightly less quality than the supermarkets, but almost all of it was plastic free, so I opted to get some potatoes, a swede (as I know supermarkets have those wrapped) and some onions. The guy at the fish counter agreed I could use my own box, which wasn't a problem at all. But when I asked for two fillets he said you have to buy the whole fish, which he could fillet for me, as they sell theirs by the fish. So i picked the smallest salmon, which came to £8, and he descaled it, and then filleted it in front of me. He cut it into 4 fillets and put it in my box and kindly added a bit of ice to keep it chilled for me. It worked out the same or even better than the supermarket price, as the pieces of salmon were big, and usually 2 fillets would cost roughly £4-£5 so it worked out fine. The guy at the till though did try twice to put my veg in plastic bags, but I just abruptly said no no please no plastic and showed him the bag i had already put on the counter. He asked if i was sure, and then laughed and shook his head as if i was a mad woman. I might start getting a reputation around my local shops for this, but hey, i don't care lol.

My next stop was Sainsburys, where i needed some tinned goods and the last of the veg i required (which actually turned out to be just celery for the stew I'm cooking right now). Unfortunately no where seems to do unwrapped celery, and I wanted my stew, so I did buy a pack (Bad i know!). I also bought a tonne of tinned tomatoes, soup, beans and tuna. What annoyed me about the Tuna was, if you buy 4 tins that are in a multi-pack wrapped in plastic, it costs you £3.70. If you don't want the plastic, but want 4 tins of tuna to buy individually, it will cost you £1 a tin equalling at £4. I'm not sure how having a small amount of plastic wrapped around it would bring the price down.. It really baffles me and is something that seems inherently wrong to me. Why? So i skipped the multipack and opted for the single tins instead. Got me some salad cream in a glass container as well as tomato puree too.  I also got some butter and other bits (including painkillers - still in pain with the wisdom tooth!).

After sainsburys I then went to the bakers and bought a loaf of bread (unsliced - because if they slice it for you they put it in a plastic bag) which I got in a paper bag. After this, me and my partner went for a drive up to get the milk, which I have begun to love doing. It's nice to see the cows, it's novel using the machine and I saw they do ice cream so i've vouched to go back and try some :).

With that shop over I've come home pretty triumphantly knowing i've significantly reduced my plastic use for the weekly shop, and quite easily and cheaply this time! And i feel like shouting take that supermarkets and your overly crazy rules on meat/fish handling.

Anyhow, i'm hungry, so until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Day 15 - Train Travel and Hangovers

Day 15 

Okay, so I have to admit, after Saturday night I wasn't in the best shape in anyway. It had been a long long night, with just a few drinks (lies) and I was feeling very much worse for wear with a long journey from Barnsley back to London ahead of me. I had some food in the morning/ afternoon when I woke up and some tea, and I thought that I would be set. On the way back on the train however I learnt we had a 50 minute stop over at Sheffield station, which only led to exacerbate the situation (what does exacerbate mean? It means to make things worse! - apologies for my rubbish film references lol). By this point I was very tired, very hungry (since I get very hungry on a hangover day) so i decided we'd look for some food. The only thing available to us was a Pumpkin Cafe inside the station, and guess what? - Yes all was covered in plastic. Being in a bad way I did make the executive decision to put my overall well being first and buy some food to keep me going on the journey.. So i bought a sandwich, crisps, a tea and a muffin (the muffin was the only thing not in plastic). So i do feel bad about this, but I wouldn't have made it home in one piece without some food, and unfortunately the challenge did suffer that afternoon. I apologise, but at least I was honest.. I wanted to show the ups and downs of this challenge and this was certainly a down moment.

So the other side to being hungover is obviously painkillers.. I have used painkillers today and over the last fews days for my wisdom tooth pain too, so this is something i'm struggling with too. I don't hold out much hope to find any painkillers that aren't in plastic, but I will keep looking for alternatives. It's frustrating, but I figure in the medical world that plastic is coupled with cleanliness/sterilisation. I imagine you could potentially use the vegetable fibre type packaging for this, but i'm not certain it would take in case any medication were compromised because of it. So again, apologies, but today is kinda helping show the realism of the whole mission I have on my hands.

Anyways, until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading :)