The end of a reduced plastic year

Well, yet again, I have learnt that I'm not that great at this whole blogging thing....I've had so many thoughts on ideas for posts since my last one in May (although nothing that monumental), but just have never managed to find the time to sit down and type out the ideas, but I did feel that I should summarise the year that has been before it actually ends....so here goes. 

In many ways I don't think our life has changed that much, but I think that's mainly because I've taken one thing at a time so over the course of the year we've changed lots of habits, but it hasn't been a giant shock to the system.  Admittedly there have been some things that simply haven't changed...I can't source toothpaste out of plastic yet, and haven't found the time to work out a homemade recipe, we still use tissues (these don't involve plastic as they're wrapped in cardboard and potato starch, but the tissues still end up in our bin) and although we buy lots of things in bulk now, they all still mainly come in plastic...just bigger bags, so less plastic.  And we don't eat crisps anymore as they all come in oodles of plastic....need to improve my homemade recipe for the family to enjoy them.

Bird filled with plastic. Photo courtesy of http://www.simple-green-living.com

And we've still managed to go camping, we've celebrated Christmas and Easter, we eat, are clean, fit and healthy....life is great and not some strange environmentally-mad-odd way of living (I guess others may judge that differently ;-)

What we don't do is put out much rubbish though (general or recycling)....I think we may get down to about 4 times a year this coming year, which compared to our waste 3 years and just last year is amazing!


So what's different?  (If you scroll to the bottom I've also reviewed what's changed from January's bin log, but that's just more for my interest probably.)


Laundry - now just use eco-balls (no conditioner) so no packaging to ditch, other than possibly a small bag when the refills come through, but haven't needed yet, so will wait and see.


Cleaning - trying to use use bicarb of soda and vinegar, and have washing up liquid in bulk.  We've also changed to fabric dishcloths/scouring pad type thing so when it's lived its life it goes in the fabric recycling bank

Personal Hygiene - soap and water does an amazing job :-)  We've given up shampoo and conditioner and either use soap or bicarb of soda.  We buy organic soap in bulk which comes in a cardboard box.  When the electric toothbrush dies we're going to change to bamboo toothbrushes that are compostable.  I've managed to make shaving oil, and still intend to investigate toothpaste recipes (on the list of things still to do).  And I am a total convert to a mooncup.

Food - we have almost entirely given up meat (a very quick way to reduce anyone's carbon footprint) and eat mainly from weekly delivered fruit and veg boxes.  We have milk delivered in glass by the milk man, make our own jam and marmalade (kids have even got in on the act now),still make our own bread and source bulk flour from the mill.  And I've set up an organic food group which now includes about 10 local households and we buy most dry goods in bulk and divvy them up (we've had four deliveries this year).  I still need to get butter from a local supermarket and a few odd other items, but just tag that into other local people's online orders.

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/readers-solutions/how-help-keep-oceans-clean

The key has definitely been raising my awareness of plastic and taking a little time to think of alternative ways of doing / buying / considering their necessity, but one thing at a time.  Several people have commented on a what a giant change it must have been, but honestly it hasn't seemed that way, and one step at a time is the only way to make any progress at anything.  But 'yes' it does take more time if you take it seriously and want to not be without some things e.g. cakes/biscuits/shaving oil etc.  But quite surprisingly it's not cost us more financially, if anything it's actually saved us money, which I certainly wasn't expecting....eliminating meat, cleaning products and lots of personal hygiene products saves lots!


And so new habits have been formed, and I'll keep journeying along in finding ways to reduce it that little bit more, but this is certainly the end of this blog. I'll wait to see if in the coming months/years I feel drawn to write about any other parts of my journey to tread more lightly on our wonderful planet and kids' future.  And if this has inspired you to give up a little bit of plastic in anyway, go for it!  I'm not looking back!  (And am always up for any tips and hints from others.)

Photo from: http://www.projectgreenbag.com/how-does-plastic-get-into-the-ocean/

End note:
So in case anyone else is interested in revisiting my original post in January which listed what was in our waste bin that week, and how that's changed read on:

• The black sack itself - we now have a plastic dustbin in the back yard and I empty our house bins into them whenever they fill up, but I don't bother with a black sack as they bin men are fine with just taking the lid off and emptying it directly into the lorry. 
• Tissues x too many to mention - we still have these :-( can't convince the household to change to handkerchiefs...maybe one day
• Chocolate biscuit wrappers - I bake biscuits and cakes instead....much more tasty, and even manage to recreate some family favourites, including party rings for one birthday (but shaped as sixes)
• Cereal inner packets - we buy bran flakes, oats and muesli in 10kg sacks (stored in the boxes in the hallway), but still have a few cereal inner packets for some of the kids favourites (all organic now, so using less petrochemicals overall)
• Napkins - still using up the old packets, but will then use our fabric ones
• Crisp packets - don't ever buy these anymore...we live without
• Kitchen paper sheets - we still use these from time-to-time, but mainly use washable cloths.  Papersheets go in the compost now, and we get them from Suma so even the 'plastic' they come wrapped in are potato starch, so entirely compostable.
• Margarine cover - we've given up marg, and now use butter.  We still need to bin these wrappers (but only once they've been used for greasing the baking dishes/trays)
• Pie packaging - don't buy anymore....pastry is very simple to make...phew!
• Cucumber wrap - occasionally have these when we buy them out of season from a supermarket as organic supermarket ones always come wrapped in plastic :-(  Thankfully the veg box ones for the rest of the year don't.
• Horlicks pot - don't buy anymore, switched to an organic hot chocolate drink that comes in glass
• Small bag from sweets - only get these when given to the kids by others
• CD wrapper - think we pretty much manage with downloads now.
• IKEA Shelf system packaging - there still remain things that get delivered to us and arrive in plastic.  As far as possible we try to reuse everything (freegle jiffy bags, bubble wrap, boxes and bags...it's really just the shrinkwrapped things that are impossible)
• Pasta packet - now source all pasta from Suma in bulk (have set up a local organic food buying group and we get a giant lorry arrive every few months and divvy up the food amongst about 10 households...good fun!)  So with 5kg bags at a time we reuse the bags where we can.  We manage to get rice in a 25kg paper sack which is great!
• Pop corn bag - get popping corn from Suma too, and still comes in a plastic bag, but bigger, so less overall
• Risotto rice box window - managed to source just a box version now
• Frozen pea packet - live without peas now.  Other freezer food: sweetcorn we now get in bulk and in tins, I make chips/potato wedgies from real life potatoes ;-), but we still get icecream in plastic, as haven't found another source.  All the tubs are becoming containers for other things and plant pots, so repurposed.
• Cling film - we don't use this any more.  We wrap sandwiches in fabric, or have in lunchboxes, and cover things in foil which we reuse when we need some other kind of covering.
• Tea bag packaging - buy this in bulk from Suma now, and just has the outer crate shrinkwrap so reduced the plastic
• Envelope windows - reuse those that we can
• Disposable nappies - just doing terries nappies again and praying night nappies will be a thing of the past in the not too distant future.

Naked bike rides, no shampoo and radishes

Yesterday the naked bike ride passed through Porsmouth and it was the catalyst to have another discussion in our family about our relience on fossil fuels and cycle safety issues.  And it's also spurred me to spend some more time finding out about fracking...always suspicious when politicians offer financial incentives for something (especially when they slip it in the day after you have a chance to vote (or not) for them).  
Some reading if you're interested: 
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/23/fracking-compensation-increase-quell-opposition
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/fracking
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/s/frack-free-uk

But closer to home, I had an amazing response to my previous post (especially on Facebook) and as a result I've been trying the 'no poo' approach to hair washing for the past month.  It's quite astounding that just washing your hair with water isn't as awful as I imagined.  It is strange at first as the natural oil in your hair takes some time to sort itself out, and having read around it is a bit more tricky with hard water....but I'm certainly going to stick with it for the time being and see how it goes (the kids too)....and we're literally just using water (some people use additional oil and other things).  And of course it saves water too....showers are shorter as I don't spend ages getting soap out of my hair.  Win win!

My husband has also given shaving with shaving oil a go.  For the first try we bought some from the shop (not in plastic packaging), but having looked at the ingredients, I think we'll be making it from now on (sunflower oil and lavender etc).  Apparently works brilliantly and is again cheaper.


And finally to radishes.  The kids and I love trying to grow things, and last year we started a 'help yourself herb' garden in our front yard.  It's led to great conversations and introductions to neighbours, and some others in neighbouring streets are wanting to do it too now.  But we have very little other space to grow stuff in, so since our neighbours don't use their front yard we asked if we could use their space this year.  They were really up for that, and we are now growing blueberries, strawberries, carrots, potatoes, radishes, tomatoes and flowers.  We harvested our first radishes this week and boy do they pack a punch!  Never tasted radishes quite like it.  Kids not quite so impressed, but hopefully the rest of our yield will be more favourable.  The main beauty is that it's like having a garden that's big enough to grow veg.  There is an amazing amount of land on our doorstep that is unused, so my plan is to expand a little further each year and see where it takes us.  (Must more realistic than getting an allotment that we need to make a trip to regularly...at this stage of life.)

The challenge for the next few weeks is cleaning...I've bought some vinegar and bicarbonate of soda...so will report back on my experiments soon.  (Oh and we have a zero waste Big Lunch to do as well :-)

Meat & Bathroom Products

Firstly, I should confirm that the two items in the title of this post are totally unrelated, other than they've been things I've been trying to source this week, without plastic.

So to start with meat.  We've had a meat free lent, but as it was my husband's birthday today as well as easter day, he asked for a roast.  Thank goodness for our farmers' market.  It only comes once a month, so very timely!  And thanks to Rother Valley Organics, they were very friendly and happy to sell me a joint of beef and squeeze it into the tupperware box that I'd taken along.  We don't have any local butchers who sell organic meat, and I also can't find any on the meat counters of our local supermarkets.  So a monthly outing to the market is the only solution that I've found so far. 

And having just done 40 days without meat, I think we'll be mainly veggie going forwards anyway.  It's cheaper, healthier and much better for the planet, so what's not to love.  Although my husband has begged for some sausages and bacon once in a while...now to try and find somewhere local that I can source that!

And my second challenge currently is bathroom products.  Simply put, it appears impossible to source 90% of these products without plastic, and I understand some of the logic (who wants to drop a glass bottle of shampoo in the shower and attempt to get out without ending up with glass shards in their feet!).  So it appears to be more a question of minimising the amount of plastic, so it's about bulk, and obviously ensuring that that plastic is recyclable.

I've also found out a bit about palm oil recently, and I'm always terrified by the fact that I basically understand nothing on the ingredient list for products, with the exception of water (or 'aqua' as they are required to put based on some naming convention), so I'm trying to source new alternatives that are less filled with mystery.  (shame they can't sell it without the water...we have some of that at home, and could add it ourselves....would certainly make the packaging smaller)

Soap - we use liquid soap in the downstairs toilet and kitchen, and we've used Ecover's hand soap, which comes in 5L containers (we then just decant into smaller ones), and in the bathroom we use good old fashioned bars of soap (we've had several kids visit and question what this strange thing on our sink is :-)  I've discovered that 'Faith in Nature' soap is available in boxes of 18 bars, and comes unwrapped, so we're testing out a scent with a single bar from our health food shop first, and if we get on with it, I'll be ordering a box.

Shampoo & Shower Gell  - good old 'Faith in Nature' again, do 5L containers of these, so I've bought a 400ml one to try out first, and then hopefully we'll find one that works well for us, and be able to get the 5L ones.  (I've heard mixed reviews on the shampoo, so fingers crossed.)

Toothpaste - I'm currently stuck on this one.  All suggestions welcome.  (Randomly found an environmental toothbrush the other day, which is made from Bamboo and some other things, and is 100% biodegradable.  They do a kids one, and adult ones, although I'm pretty converted to electric toothbrushes now, as they do seem to clean your teeth so much better than regular brushes...so undecided.)

Razors - we don't buy the disposable ones, so we've limited the amount of plastic we ditch.  Haven't seen anything about them being recyclable though.

Toilet Roll - Suma do 'Ecoleaf' toilet rolls which are made from 100% recycled paper, and the packaging is made from potato starch so is recyclable.  Brilliant, and we've been using them for the past 2 months now, and are getting used to them.  Only thing I'm not sure about is when you buy the bulk lot....feels like that's in regular plastic, so I've emailed them to double check...no response yet, but will let you know when I hear back.

Sanitary towels/tampons  - I've left this to last, so any guys reading this that freak out at this point can stop reading now, and you won't miss anything else.  Or challenge yourself to just toughen up for these issues, and read on :-)
So buy far the most environmentally friendly product on the market appears to be the 'Mooncup', which is basically a silicone cup that you insert and which collects everything.  I've trialed one now for the past three months, and I am totally sold on it!  They estimate that in a woman's lifetime we'll each use over 11,000 pads and tampons!  That's a lot of waste, and you need none of them...just a mooncup, and it lasts for years.  Even the packaging is all recyclable.
So it saves money, the planet, and personally, I just feel much happier wearing one, than anything else that I've ever used for the past how ever many years.
Part of the reason I like it, is that you get to understand your body and flow so much better, and it works equally fine on light and heavy flow days.  I think part of the beauty is that it just holds everything there for you, rather than the other products where you're reliant on how quickly they can absorb everything, and therefore not leak.
A few birthdays ago, when I first started on my journey of making things rather than buying (where possible), some friends brought me a book with lots of patterns.  One was to make homemade sanitary towels, and they joked that if I ever got to the stage of making them, I'd gone too far.  But ironically a few years on, I probably won't need to ever make them.
So I'd really recommend giving a Mooncup a go, and not being shy about chatting to others about it.  I chatted with a friend who's used them before, after a few days of starting with mine, and got some invaluable tips and confidence boost around technique and faith in the product.  Go on....give it a go.

Is a young child's birthday possible without plastic?

So on Monday is was my youngest's 3rd birthday, and I continued my reducing plastic challenge in all the planning.  Here are my top tips on how to avoid plastic.

Presents
All the things that we gave him (from us and his sister) were second hand or homemade.  The beauty of second hand is that they don't come wrapped in all the packaging, as who keeps the packaging and then puts it back on to send to an NCT sale, or give to a family member or friend, and they're recycled?  So thanks to a local NCT sale, charity shops and family/friends that often give us things that their kids have outgrown as had a total success on this front.
I also made him a headboard holder for his cars/dinosaurs/sea creatures/dinosaurs etc which was a big hit!
 
(Obviously we can't influence what others give him, but some friends who know about my current downer on plastic removed packaging before wrapping their gifts, or bought things not packaged in plastic!)

Wrapping
He is only 3, so part of the fun of presents is ripping open the gift wrap.  However, he couldn't care less if it's wrapped in magical, expensive wrapping paper, or the cardboard box that it was delivered in when sent from a relative, so I left quite a lot in the boxes it arrived in, and also wrapped our bits in boxes and ribbons, and fabric and ribbons, so we can use it all again.
I've also salvaged what wrapping paper I can from other gifts he ripped open, as there are always little gifts to be wrapped throughout the year.

Party Food
The simplest thing is to make it from scratch, and he made it pretty simple with his requests for food, so we had:  

• Dinosaur shaped sandwiches
• Veg sticks
• Homemade carrot hummus
• Chunks of cheese and pineapple
• Cake
• Squash (Rocks Organic comes in glass)
• Fruit

And I made the Mum's PSB & Leek soup with bread, followed by cake and a cuppa.

 Party Games
Let's face, it at three you're just happy to play, so that was the main gist of the party, although I also did a little pass the parcel which included foil wrapped mini eggs in each layer (recyclable) and used some old maps and recycled wrapping paper alternatively for the wrapping.

Party Bags
My eldest and I had fun making little crocodiles for everyone out of old egg boxes, and then we popped a balloon, some second hand dinosaurs, stickers, more foil wrapped eggs, a foil wrapped chocolate lolly (great to see the stick was made out of paper), and a cup cake.  So probably the only thing that couldn't be reused or recycled was the cake wrapper. 

All in all a pretty plastic free affair.  Success! 

Giving up meat for lent helps save the planet?

So we haven't eaten much meat this year anyway, as it's generally packaged in lots of unrecycled stuff, but I decided we'd go all out during lent and totally skip meat to see how we'd cope. (As you can see the kids seem to be enjoying it :-)


I also thought I'd start to do some reading up on the carbon footprint of meat, and I've been astonished.  I'm not sure if I've just been blinkered to lots of news about this, or it's just not news, but when we talk about reducing our carbon footprint, I always remember hearing lots about reducing your air miles, insulating your home, double glazing, walk more, etc.  But not eating meat (or even reducing how much you eat) also has a huge impact.

Just google 'carbon footprint of meat' and you'll be drowning in the info.  

At the start of this year I listened to a TED talk by Graham Hill about being a 'Midweek Veggie', which was where we started, and I'd recommend it as a listen: http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian

And having felt a few weeks ago that the issues of climate change were insurmoutable, I was interested to do the WWF Carbon Footprint calculator this weekend (I haven't done one in years), and by the time we don't fly, we've gotten rid of the car, and we've cut out meat, along with lots of boring things such as insulated the house, double glazing, shop local, buy organic, grow a few bits, recycle/share things, we've somehow managed to get our use of the earth to less than 1.  So if we all lived like that (according to WWF) we'd be OK.  I was amazed, as I thought we'd have to live much more extremely.  (of course we will if others don't get on board!)

So in future I'm going to approach carbon footprint conversations differently, as often people have great excuses why they can't give up flying, or driving, but do we really have a good excuse not to give up some meat from our lives?  (And I don't count 'but I like it' as much of an excuse :-)

So yet again, perhaps an 'inconvenient truth', but how about cutting out meat at least one more day next week, and see how it goes.   And you might find my pinterest pages with recipes helpful:
http://www.pinterest.com/southseamum/2014-meat-free-lent-recipes-for-this-week/
http://www.pinterest.com/southseamum/midweek-veggie-ideas/

And if you do buy meat, try and get it from the local farmers market, butchers, or the counter at a supermarket, and take along your own container.  I've asked our local organic butcher who comes to the farmers' market each month, and he had no problem at all with not using his bags to take it home in (saves him money too).

Eco Balls to Lend Out & Jam Jar Lids

Fancy trying Eco Balls before buying?

So if you've been reading this blog you'll know that I'm a convert to the Ecoballs, although we had a slight blip at the start of this week.  I opened the door to the washing machine and found the nappies mixed with the innards of one of the balls.  One of the joins had worked loose, and out they came.  No disaster as I managed to just scoop them back up, and the washing was still done, but slightly annoying.


I contacted Ethicalsuperstore, where I'd bought them from, and they apologised and sent me another pack.

I haven't heard of this happening to anyone else, so I'm up for continuing with them, but I do now have a couple spare, as they last for 1000 washes.  So rather than squirrel them away for a few years, I thought I'd see if anyone wants to experiment with them, and have the chance to 'try before you buy'.

Jam Jar Lids

So if you live locally, let me know and I'll send them your way for a couple of weeks.

My other revelation recently was on the recycling of jam jar lids.  I lot of jars I reuse for my homemade jam, but there are some that are just unusable due to their size, and I've been frustrated that you can't also recycle their lids in the glass banks.  Locally they've started to advertise that you can leave screw tops on wine bottles now, but they dont't seem to have extended that to jam jars etc yet.

I googled and came up with a revelation from Somerset: 

Can you accept can and jam jar lids? Yes, but because small lids sometimes get stuck in collection vehicles and sorting equipment, it helps if lids can be squashed inside a food can. All can and jam jar lids can be recycled as they are made from steel (test with a magnet to see if sticks), but not screw tops from bottles, which are made from various alloys and are not steel.

And don't forget steel biscuit tins.  (Just remember to not put lids in if they are lined with plastic...life's not that simple of course.)

The 'continuing' Age of Stupid & Rethinking Environmental Folklore

So in the past week I've been sent a couple of things to watch from friends, and I thought I'd share them with you too.

The first was a TED talk (I love these) by a sustainability strategist, who urges us to think bigger in order to create systems and products that ease the strain on the planet.  Really interesting, very accessible and challenging. (18 mins long)

http://www.ted.com/talks/leyla_acaroglu_paper_beats_plastic_how_to_rethink_environmental_folklore.html

The second is a movie from a few years back, that I missed at the time, and is called 'The Age of Stupid'.  Wikipedia sums it up nicely: The film is a drama-documentary-animation hybrid which stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from the mid-to-late 2000s and asking "Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?"

It has very challenging footage from Iraq, the US, Nigeria, France and some infuriating footage from the UK.  It's a bit longer at 89 mins, but is a challenging watch, and in some ways makes my small changes seem like total drops in the ever rising oceans, but inspires me to think further and beyond as well.  http://youtu.be/XpSdPP9b0pc

A few weeks ago someone was shocked when I explained that we no longer have a car and rarely leave the city, and that I hope not to have to travel on a plane in the future.  Was I not limiting my children's outlook on life by not taking them to the woods and the countryside frequently, by not flying them to different places?  On one level the answer could be 'yes', but on a more future planet-state level, perhaps I'm helping to keep opportunities and life as we know it on our planet for a bit longer.  As another movie title suggestions, it's an 'inconvient truth'...and a constant battle/challenge to make decisions....but it often feels like the 'right choice'.

All a bit more heavy that bins, plastic and nappies...but hey ho.