A busy day on the plastic-free (or not so plastic-free, as the case may be) front.

Chicken

First off a trip to a local farm shop, which has a butchers who are happy to put meat in your own containers, to get the chicken which I couldn’t get in Waitrose in the monthly shop. I had tried ringing to put through an order, but no-one was picking up, so I decided to drop by on the way to run a couple of errands. It got more convoluted as the butcher was out, and so I will have to put an email order in. But the good news is that it seems like we now have a system we can use – order then pick up on a set day of the week – and so we can plan meals accordingly. We had been meaning to do this for months, so this is a real plastic-free month win – a bit of a faff today, and I’ll have to rejig the meal plan this month, but hopefully now we have a system set up which works.

Sidenote: we realised that we needed more freezer space for various reasons (more bulk meat shopping, fruit season starting on the allotment so storage space needed, possibly more storage needed for advance bakes of homemade bread, and a slight increase in batch meal cooking and storage) and so last month we increased our freezer capacity by about 50% by picking up a local second-hand undercounter freezer from ebay (they seem to go for £30-£60).

Other finds

While I was at the farm shop, I checked out the other things available. There was not too much in the way of food, although there was a small fruit and veg section which was largely packaging free (but I think for us, variety and price-wise, sticking with the local market will be best). Excitingly, there was a freezer with loose soft fruits (which we are well stocked on from the allotment at the moment, but could come in useful in winter.

But I did also spot a number of household items, which will go into our directory for when we need them: brushes, compostable sponge cloths, beeswax food wraps, and lip balms.

We won’t need the brushes any time soon – we have 2 spare plastic ones (Ikea – dangerous for cheap bulk purchases!), and the first one is going strong after a couple of years. Much better to use up the items we already have than ditch them for new ones, even if the new ones are plastic free. Also, we swapped to microfibre dishcloths about a year ago – we just pop them in the washing machine in a hot towel wash. This was before I realised washing microfibre actually releases microfibres into the water supply. Am contemplating seeing if I can make my own GuppyFriend rather than swap out barely used cloths!

Sainsbury’s

Popped into Sainsbury’s on the way past to see if they had yellow school uniform polo shirts back in stock for Little MIH. They did, and I actually picked them up before I realised my plastic bag siren finally went off. It turned out I didn’t have my card with e anyway, so that would have thwarted any buying. There is a second hand school uniform sale tomorrow, so I will check that out.

Tesco

Picked up a few bits we needed for tea, but I missed the plastic sticker on the avocado!

Yoghurt Issues

The yoghurt batch I made yesterday turned out a bit runny and odd this morning, so I have made another batch this evening so we will see how this turns out. The starter yoghurt now tastes a bit more bitter the usual, but I’m hoping the new batch will work out OK otherwise we may not be able to have any more yoghurt for the rest of the month, as buying a new live batch would involve a plastic pot (maybe not such a disaster as Little MIH is still refusing to eat it in her packed lunch, even when laced with gooseberry crumble, which she would normally wolf down).

Mr MIH work trip

With improved sandwiches with mayonnaise from home this morning, and a refillable Keep Coffee Cup with him, Mr MIH was well set up for a work trip. Unfortunately he had to buy a coffee for a colleague when he bought himself one, so a half-fail – I’ll put it down as an unsolicited item!

Fails

Avocado sticker

 

Things we couldn’t buy/things that have run out but we won’t replace

New school uniform polo shirts

Tortillas

Unsolicited items

Coffee cup

Envelope window

Bin bag – Wrapping for a water heater won on ebay on 23rd June, but delivered during the challenge month. I don’t think I wrote it in the rules, but I think my intention was that we could not buy anything new with plastic. As the water heater was second-hand although it is made with plastic, I have not listed here as I think reuse is a positive thing. More on the water heater here.

 

 

One week in already and we have our third plastic-free day in a row! This is largely because we didn’t need to buy anything and we live in a village with just one shop, so I don’t often pass shops or go in just to browse.

As a sidenote, Mr MIH did have a plastic-heavy lunch today though, but courtesy of work – sandwiches in boxes, chopped fruit in plastic pots, crisps, and little cakes in a box.

Check back in on Thursday, when I will do a run down of our plastic rubbish for the week!

Fails

None

Things we couldn’t buy

None

Unsolicited items

None

 

Mr MIH had to do the final stock up on lunch goods today for the week. His normal routine is to stock up on food for the week on Monday lunchtime at the Asda round the corner from his office. He went in with the homemade bread (note: although we made bread this time, we have had success before getting made-in-store sliced bread put into our own bags in Tesco), and the ham we pre-bought at the weekend as we know the Asda, does not have a deli. He tried red pepper as the vegetable matter. He was going to buy Mayonnaise (which he normally uses in lieu of butter too), but unfortunately the jar had an anti-tamper plastic film, so that was out. So slightly dry sandwiches unfortunately – he will work on some improvements. In good news, although the fruit offerings out of packaging comprised only bananas, apples and oranges, as Asda stocked only one type of loose apple, they didn’t need any stickers, so entirely plastic-free apples, unlike Waitrose on Day 1.

We also put in an order in to our local packaging-free store today: noodles, cashews, sultanas, and new deodorant for Mr MIH to try.

I won’t lie, the deodorant is pricey, so we are hoping it lasts a long time, and that if he doesn’t like it, it has a smell which is ok for me to use. I’ve got a Pitrok crystal stick deodorant, which I bought pre trying to cut down on waste, and in particular plastic, so it does come in a plastic container. It was pricey too, but I think judging by the rate at which it is going down it should last about 5 years, so it will be a saving in the long run, and will have saved on lots of packaging in the meantime from a new roll-one deodorant bought every couple of months.

Fingers crossed our order will also include washing up liquid – it sounds like we will be able to get it in our own container, so do not have to buy a new bottle.

Fails

None…we are on a roll!

Things we couldn’t buy

None.

Unsolicited items

None.

Any questions on what we are doing on certain things? I realise my posts leave out a lot of what we were already doing before this, particularly where we have bulk bought in previous months to don’t need to restock this month!