Zero Plastic Week Day 2

Zero Plastic Week is a World Wide event to raise awareness through conscious effort to avoid adding any new plastic to our lives, and to avoid buying anything new made from or packaged in plastic.

This week is about finding creative solutions to avoid the use of plastic.  And to get people to think outside of their usual comfortable, complacent box.

Since I don't buy a lot of processed foods, I have already cut way back on my use of plastic.  And I don't buy make up or hygiene products that come in plastic.  So here's where I have to get more invested in finding creative solutions to cut out the last of the disposable plastic coming into my home.

Looking at the condiments in my refrigerator, they all come in glass.  Only my mustard has a plastic lid on the little glass jar.

The small plastic tub which used to hold yogurt, is being reused for something else, and since I found yogurt in a quart jar from a local supplier, I no longer need to buy yogurt in plastic.

In fact looking around my kitchen I was pretty happy that, I had mostly left plastic behind in my grocery shopping.  And that's because I live in a community which has an organic food co-op and more than one farmer's market, and local family run farms which sell organic food raised with love.  And so the credit goes mostly to my community for making those choices possible.

AND THEN...

 I opened the meat drawer.

So now I have a challenge ahead of me.

That drawer usually has two or three chickens and a bag of organ meats for the cats too (and that's every week)--all packaged in plastic.

So there it is.  That is the skeleton in my cupboard so to speak.



But I continued my kitchen tour, to determine where else I could clean up my act.

Chick pea flour! hmmmm.

And  Real Salt comes in a plastic bag.  hmmmm.

So does the fair trade raw organic cocoa in the back of the cupboard. (sigh)

And then I came upon all these little soldiers with their little plastic caps.   Yikes!

And look what was sitting there next to them!

And even the Bananas have little plastic bikinis covering their stems!

So here's where I'm at.  These are my challenges, which I am already coming up with fairly easy solutions (I hope)

Basic Items Which Come Packaged in Plastic

Toilet paper: I'll have to give that some thought.

Cheese: I'll have to think about that too. Maybe get it by the wheel? That's a lot of cheese!!

Bacon: Find local market or farm which sells bacon, NOT shrink wrapped.

Meat: Same as above

Chicken: Solved !! *

Bread: Bake my own

The Salt I use: Find a different brand, with same high quality.

Vinegars, oils, sauces: Too bad about those plastic caps! I can make some of the sauces and vinegar, and I can use butter and chicken fat in place of some oils, but what about good quality olive oil?  And soy sauce? I'll have to think about that too.

Bananas: I guess it's good bye to bananas.

Almost everything else is available plastic free, from produce, to dairy.  Spices and baking essentials like flour, sugar, soda, and others like honey, maple syrup, rice lentils, dried fruit and pasta can be found in the bulk bins.

Yes, it's a little more effort, but I had already made the commitment to shopping mostly local and buying whole organic foods, so there's no change there.

Anyway, I'm just sharing some of my process around this.  If you have ideas, I'd love to hear what you think.

* Chicken Solved!! I get my chicken at a local farm, and they agreed that I could bring my own containers so that means a lot fewer plastic bags already!

Tomorrow is day 3.

What's good for our planet is good for us all.