Day: 17 September 2016

Yes I know, you just love those supermarket plastic bags ‘cause then you can use them to line your rubbish bins can’t you.

Of course, you also have a black bin liner in the big bin too and you go ahead and put in the smaller, rubbish-filled supermarket plastic bags into the larger black bin liner so they can all go to the landfill.

I’m not picking at you, hell no, I’ve been known to line the household rubbish bin with the plastic bag, and when looking after a dog – yup, picking up the doggy-do with one as well.
But I do try to limit the amount of plastic I do use – or recycle as much as I can. Even been known to re-purpose and give the plastic a new meaning in life.

I do use canvas bags at the supermarket … I find them easier to carry anyway, and the ones I have are a decent size. Inside one of them, I have plastic bags e.g. bread bags or nut bags that I have previously used. I soon learned that the bar code needs to be removed, so there’s a sticker over them. Otherwise, you get charged for a loaf of bread instead of a head of broccoli or a couple of onions. Hopefully, the last sentence tells you that I use these bags for veggies/fruit (buying loose where-ever possible). As for the nuts – well, I’m not that organised to be able to put the right nuts into the right bags, therefore, the bags have a few product numbers crossed out and the new one put on.

Having a stainless steel water bottle instead of a plastic one means I can put it through the dishwasher on occasions to get it sterilized …. I’m waiting for the day the supermarkets provide water stations where you put in 50c and you can fill your bottle with filtered water. Will I be waiting a while for that to happen???? Going to the States too often shows me what can be done.

Don’t use any facial product that has microbeads and use a bar of soap instead of bottled free-flow.

Would like to say that I make my own products as in cleaners, toothpaste, shampoos etc, but sadly, no. However, I seldom buy frozen foods, go more with cans and when I do freeze it’s in plastic storage boxes that I’ve got at the op shop, thoroughly washed and giving it another life. Use glass where I can and cover food in the fridge with those little doilies that you can also get at the op-shop for next to nothing.

My mother did without plastic. I remember she had a basket and a string bag to go shopping with. Everything came in paper bags even the meat was wrapped in paper. She bottled (or canned for my American readers), all the excess fruit and veggies. We had everything from pickled onions to preserved eggs, spaghetti to salted meats, not to mention the bottles of peaches, apples, feijoas, plums etc and the cakes and biscuits. We were lucky to have a walkthrough pantry – yup I said: “walk through”. That pantry was “heaven”!

It’s quite sad that we are all in such a hurry. ‘Convenience’ has taken over, meaning that we’d rather grab a new plastic bag for the head of broccoli than wash out a used bread (e.g.) bag and put it back into our canvas shopping bag.

Let’s be real, the politicians are not going to ban the plastic bag because it would upset too many people (probably including their own families). I will give kudos to those companies that charge for the plastic bags, but perhaps they could go one step further and offer a small discount if you bring your own recycled ones.

And, yes, I know there are countries who have actually banned the plastic bag… I just wish more would follow suit it would make a huge difference to our planet.

Do you do something different that helps the environment?
Your comments will be appreciated.