First steps on shopping plastic-free

A year ago we decided to cut down bringing plastic into our home. Following is the result of our first time trying plastic-free shopping. Our future is bright!

June 2018 thoughts

Those who have read our earlier posts know that we are on the path of consuming less, saving more, putting our minds and home into a minimalism mode and trying to survive without a fridge and buying less plastic. We can manage with most of the above-mentioned things just fine. Now we have to tackle the plastic matter. Is it possible to shop plastic-free?

Little (plastic-free) steps do matter

So far the first month has passed quite nicely for us. As we were able to save food from going to waste. Eve rescued it from the work canteen. So we were able to save more money and put it into our savings. Eve’s posts should give you a better overview of this subject. We haven’t been buying a lot. As all the little things we need, we already have. And if we have run out of something, then we are always looking to buy it in a glass, tin can or some other form, except in plastic.

Since it is the end of the month, it means we are ought to cook a complete new vegan meal we always have wanted to cook. This is part of celebrating our wedding date every month. I guess you need some kind of traditions in your family. And we are proud that we can join our forces on something we both love equally, maybe Eve a bit more than me – food!

Let’s investigate the (plastic-free?) haul

Let’s talk about the photo below, our haul for the anniversary cooking. Most things on the picture we bought for the two-course meal: oven-baked nachos and American style strawberry cake. As you can see most is in glass or in tin jars. (There will be a post soon talking about the difference between a can and a can) BUT of course, there are few BUT’s: starting from the left, vitamin B  and Magnesium drink tablets, lemon extract, margarine, toothbrushes, glass noodles, nachos and strawberries in a plastic container. The potatoes are in a recyclable green bag.*

What we failed at?

The toothbrushes – we desperately needed them (I know, what a lousy excuse!). But we could have waited a day and get a bamboo one from some other store.

Vitamin drinks, as we are deficient on B12 and Mg, and had no medicine by hand.

Lemon extract, well not sure why did we buy it maybe thinking of using it for a long time. Definitely not to be bought in the future in such form.

Margarine was a must for the cake and since there are not really many vegan options available in the first place, let’s not even go to plastic-free options here…perhaps in the near future.

Glass noodles are our favorites and we have really grown on them. But if consuming them means bringing all this plastic home, then I think we should change our habits than continue this flow of plastic.

Nachos, are there really plastic-free options?

Strawberries, after we bought them we thought they could have poured them all in the red plastic bag, what we had with us. So we could have saved three containers, but since we were on a long walk from the store with heavy bags, we realized when reaching home it all would have been a big mush.

This amount of plastic really made my heart hurt. It was the last time we did such a purchase. Next time we would have our own containers or bags with us not to take anything from the farmer.

So there you go, not bad at all, but many changes could still be done. Moral of the story:

prepare ahead of time, know your needs, do your research and bring your own containers or bags, when shopping for produce.

November 2019 plastic-free update

As time has passed, we have become more environmentally aware, conscious of our actions and adjusted our needs. Also, we have found alternatives for products coming in plastic containers in different stores.

Let’s see what has changed 1,5 year later:

*Vitamin B  and Magnesium drink tablets – we no longer buy them. They come only in plastic and are not really healthy. We have liquid B12 we take from a glass jar.

*Lemon extract – this actually lasted for a while, as we finished it perhaps a month ago. But now we would never buy it. As real lemon is the real way to go!

*Margarine – it is a very processed product, so we have been avoiding it. We mostly use coconut oil now. Recently we found small cubes in the store, which come in paper.

*Toothbrushes – we have turned a long time ago to bamboo brushes.

*Glass noodles – we have stopped buying those. Have twice bought big bags of noodles to last us for long.

*Nachos – haven’t bought any since then!

*Strawberries – we have always put them in our own containers.

Stay tuned to read more about our current life, while aiming for zero-waste, plastic-free, and less consuming life.