We are not keeping the score on all the plastic that comes into the house, just pbotographing some of the stuff that should have been avoidable in the 'shopping'; superfluous packaging, pointless packaging, and lies.
Lies? ...we hear you ask.
Well take these cotton buds that F buys to apply my toothpaste (I believe we could dispense with those completely), she has found cotton on 'paper sticks', which their manufacturer calls NATURE TOUCH and sells in a non-recyclable plastic bag.
Mr B's prefered brand of soap has always come in a cardboard box. Now the cardboard box is superfluously wrapped in non-recyclable crispy plastic film.
A popular brand of mayonnaise comes in a glass jar, with a metal lid, a paper label, and a paper 'security' indicator strip. BRILLIANT. So what happened to the butter? Pointlessly plastic wrapper What's wrong with paper? F used to use butter paper to line baking tins.
We used to be able to get milk in refillable glass. Now the options are plastic (theoretically can be recycled; practically we wonder whether our sorted waste does in fact go for recycling) and tetra-boxes which are so mixed material they are virtually impossible to recycle.
Devil and deep blue sea come to mind....
Our cheese and meat gets wrapped in 'paper' but it has a sneaky thin layer of plastic film on one side. (At least it peels off so the paper can go in the recycling.)
It goes on and on, but the point of this post it to remark that even with the best intentions there are often no option that doesn't include plastic - sometimes in very hidden ways.
We found out this week that teabag paper is 25% plastic....
Is this the sort of blog post you might expect from a cat? Not at all, but I'm tired of hearing about it, and tired of sidling past all the buckets and bins and bags or sorted waste at the end of the kitchen bench. Resolving to consume less with plastic should be easier than this, but unless we resort to eating only fruit and veg from the outdoor produce market (loaded into our own reusable bags), we genuinely have no way to avoid the stuff, and we are seriously trying. How much plastic does a household get if they aren't trying?
We are trying to train the butcher to put my meat into our own reusable box, but his objection seems to be that he doesn't know where to stick the price label! Well I'm not becoming a vegetarian for anyone; he can stick his label on my tail if that's what it takes.
Hari Om
ReplyDeleteA conundrum with which I all too familiar, Tigger ol' boy. It's triply difficult for me (and many), by using the shop online... the picker at the store is not necessarily going to work on minimising the plastic - indeed the plastic is a safeguard at the moment that serves a purpose. Sigh... d*****d if ya do, d****d if ya don't... hugs and whiskeries, YAM-aunty xxx
We're not even sure if they have online supermerkets here yet but F's hopping mad to discover govt here is closing outdoor markets (possibly only the Saturday ones???) and trying to force us all into supermarkets. Every part of that defies logic.
Delete...well, yes... except that supermarket shoppers can be managed to a much greater degree, whilst markets just invite actual mingling and shoulder-brushing and such. The sight of queues with 2m distancing and max six - sixty (according to floor size) inside is now almost normal over here. Not that I have physically observed this. Y'know, the online thing... Yxx
DeleteI have been trying to not use plastic but it really is hard in some instances
ReplyDeleteI have m own bags for fruit and veggies and my reusable bags for shopping
But there is so much around I wonder if I’m even making a difference
The most we can all do is try I guess
If everyone tried a little bit we'd make a mountain of change.
Deletewe are doing the same here, it gets harder and harder. the one thing I rant and rave over is bottled water. I see every time I shop, people with 100 bottles of water in plastic in their baskets. I have lived 76 years and the only bottled water I have had was when I was in Jungle Gardens and dying of thirst and had to pay 4 dollars for an 8 oz bottle of water. there are 300 million and more in USA alone, just one bottle day, OH MY WORD... and that doesn count bottled drinks.. you set me off and there is more but you already know it
ReplyDeleteSandra its good to hear from someone who is passionate about these things. F is half plannong her next career (she thi ks of retirement as just a different career) and wants to return to some sort of environmental work. Passionate people help forge those plans. Stay passionate. xxx Mr T
DeleteWe have the same problem here Tigger. It is not just food that has so much plastic, so does everything else. When a new kettle came into the house, it had plastic wrap and polystyrene all around it. I know this because I had to push it out of the way so I could play in the box.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked my 'sneakers' - I wash them a lot to keep them so white.
Big purrs, Mittens 😻
You know Mittens, I have arrived at the conclusion my humans should drink more wine; glass bottles, cork stopper sealed with wax, cardboard box, no plastic. I like cardboard boxes too, so it would be a "win-win" as they say in American TV. xxx Mr T
DeleteApparently we can buy milk in bottles here but not always in supermarkets, they seem to push the plastic bottles, why I don't know, so much nicer to recycle.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have an amazing milk refilling station nearby. We suspect covid killed it, people got nervous about stuff someone else could have touched. It got closed down in the middle of 2020. We really miss it.
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