Make It Happy

Hurray for Waitrose! Not long after deciding to go try out plastic-free month challenge, Waitrose announced that they were trialling a new ‘Unpackaged’ concept in one of their stores – until 18 August 2019 they are stocking 160 varieties of fruit and veg unpacked and have introduced 48 products to refill, from pasta and grains to frozen fruit, coffee, beer, wine, plus cleaning products, in the Oxford, Botley Road store  – you can read more here.  And even better for us, although not ultra-close, it is a driveable distance (44 miles) (sidenote: we have an electric car (2014 Nissan Leaf) and solar panels which in summer we can use to charge it, so CO2 emissions-wise and economically this isn’t too horrendous – just time and convenience, as usual).

So today, for the start of our plastic-free 30 days, I drove down to Waitrose, complete with our shopping list for the month (we will still have weekly veg shops and small weekly local top-up supermarket shops). And here is the result. Any plastic containers are our own (I have a stockpile of plastic freezer bags I have been using for frozen batch cooking).

There were some things we couldn’t get, and so I will still need to source these locally: chicken, bacon, washing-up liquid (see below), spinach (I was so hopeful but, alas, only in plastic bags!), frozen peas, sliced bread.

We have now switched to milkman-delivered milk in glass bottles. It looks like we may not actually use as much as I had anticipated, so hopefully the extra cost per year will go down which is good news, as at £250 a year more than plastic bottles, this is a pricey swap (and hence it has taken nearly a year for us to take the plunge to glass bottles).

Fails

Sigh, a fail on the first day. Plastic stickers on some of the fruit.

Also, a not-sure-if-is-a-fail – I treated us to a bottle of wine and bought a reusable bottle with a stopper which may include plastic  – I was rather hoping it was rubber, but it may not be.

Things we couldn’t buy

Refill bottle for Ecover washing up liquid. Unfortunately, to get a washing up liquid refill, we had to have an Ecover bottle, which I don’t, and as we couldn’t buy the bottle as it was plastic, we also couldn’t get washing-up liquid today.

Unsolicited items

Nappy bag – Little MIH had a mud fight at school, followed by a water fight. Her uniform and socks came home in a nappy bag.

Half-fail/half-unsolicited items from my pre-plastic-free challenge self. A parcel ordered on the internet, which included: sellotape; 2 clear stickers; one plastic bag.

One envelope window – mental note to stop mail from bank!

Anyone else starting plastic-free July? What do you think the trickiest bits will be for you? Please do leave comments below!