Plastic Free Becomes the Norm: Groceries

I haul in my canvas bag stuffed full of more bags: canvas, plastic, organic cotton, paper.  And a few sheets of wax paper & aluminum foil.  At Whole Foods no-one bats an eye. 

I head for the bulk section.  Ah, my sweet trail mix, nuts, even crackers (a true novel delight), granola, rice, whole wheat flour, beans, lentils, raisins. . . I fill the re-used plastic bags, some paper bags and the cotton bags with the scoopfuls and move onto the produce section.

I save two plastic bags for the produce section: One for bulk carrots, one for apples.  This helps the checkout person to not fumble with half a dozen single items.  Plus, carrots get soft if not wrapped in plastic.  If I'm thoughtful enough, I'll line the plastic with paper so the food doesn't make direct contact.  I'm not always that thoughtful.  A lot of the organics are wrapped in plastic already, making them off limits for my plastic free attempts. But I still strive to buy organic, more now than ever.  I mean, how can I decide not to wrap my food in plastic because of the chemicals, and then accept pesticides on my produce?  Broccoli is usually only wrapped in a rubber band, as is asparagus.  (Does rubber count as plastic?  I'll have to look into that...)  Onions, potatoes, a melon, papaya maybe this week, or perhaps some kiwi?  Ooh, and yes, mango.  Apparently I don't mind my food travelling thousands of miles to get to my plate.

Onto the "innards" of the store: The cardboard boxes inevitably lined in plastic or containing a plastic bag, or maybe a little plastic tray so the cookies stay just perfectly placed.  All off limits, but I look anyway, just to see if I missed something before.  Applesauce, juice (pomegranate, blueberry, acai - only expensive organic juices come in glass bottles, so I get novel with it), and that's about it. 

I ogle the frozen section, full of plastic wrapped processed foods.  Yes, even organic is processed if it's frozen.  And I don't ogle the frozen whole foods.  The chilled dairy section full of plastics I pass on: sour cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, most cheese.  Whole Foods has a local farm who supplies milk in glass bottles - it's less than half a gallon. 

At the cheese section, the employee behind the counter now recognizes me and tells me what he's planning on slicing today.  He gives me kudos for my efforts and happily accepts whatever I give him to wrap the cheese in.  I haven't turned down an offer yet. 

The meat section is plastic wrapped, but there's a counter and they will gladly cut and wrap some meat in butcher paper, (or my waxed paper when I discovered the butcher paper is plastic lined).  We eat maybe 2 dinners a week with meat so the cost isn't prohibitive.  Someone mentioned the other days as "vegetarian" days to me recently, which sounded odd.  "Vegetarian" rings a deprived note in my brain, and offends me on some level.  Eggplant parmigiana doesn't seem like a "vegetarian" dinner in the way I think of the word.  All that cheese and frying... That's not deprivation, or healthy!  While they cut & wrap the meat, I get some unground coffee.  The choices are all organic, so even my coffee is organic now.  It's costly, yet the amount I don't spend on junk food and instead spend on produce (much less) makes up for the splurges of good meat and coffee.  This week I delighted in finding natural wax paper sandwich bags in a cardboard box while waiting on the meat.

The canvas grocery bags go up first to the cashier, along with last week's milk jug that I get $1.50 back on for returning.  Then the bags of bulk foods.  The produce tends to roll around on the belt, a mismatch of raw plants.  I get $1.00 off for bringing 10 bags of my own.  The whole shopping trip fills only three canvas bags since they have at least twice or three times the capacity of a plastic grocery bag. 

My bill comes to about $130 this week, including the extravagant purchase of an all metal "To Go" stackable Tupperware replacement.  A couple months ago I would have spent $150 at Walmart on supposedly "less expensive" food and the fruits and veggies would have generally gone to waste since chips and granola bars are so much more convenient and tasty.  That's just me, though.  I don't think everyone's food bill goes down when they switch to health food stores.  I am convinced that eating fresh foods is cheaper than processed at this point though.  I'm not sure exactly how... But our refrigerator is bare by the end of each week, which I see as a good thing.  That means we're eating all the food instead of saving it for science experiments to see what kind of decomposition happens in the fridge.  And my husband has been amazed numerous times at how I can pull a meal out of "There's nothing to eat!"

Three Weeks of Plastic Reduction

Reviewing the last three weeks, I wanted to record some of the changes I’ve made.  A lot of these are not convenient at all and sometimes expensive, and others are very simple while actually saving money.  All have reduced my plastic consumption… I hope!  I always seem to get surprise plastic where I don’t expect it!

1.       Re-used the plastic bags I already have (cereal, rice, produce, crackers, etc) for purchasing bulk & produce items

2.       Bought produce un-bagged (Even a dozen carrots – maybe I’ll re-use a bag for that next time for the clerk’s sake!)

3.       Bought meat from the counter wrapped in butcher paper

4.       Brought my own containers to the deli for lunch meat & cheese

5.       Washed & re-used glass jars instead of Tupperware

6.       Made bread from scratch

7.       Found milk in glass containers at Whole Foods!  (Yay!)

8.       Bought bread from a bakery before it was bagged, and got a paper bag instead

9.       Bought bulk items, re-using my own containers/bags:

·         Nuts

·         Snacks

·         Rice

·         Beans

·         Flour

·         Cereal

·         Dried fruit

·         Popcorn

10.   Actually remembered to bring my own canvas grocery bags from home (Some stores even gave me a few cents off for this effort!)

11.   House cleaning with baking soda (cardboard box) & vinegar (glass bottle- although plastic lid)

12.   Cleaned myself with baking soda & vinegar

·         Baking Soda:

§ Shampoo

§ Body wash

§ Deoderant

§ Toothpaste (only every other brushing -  Can’t quite give up on that

§ Dry Shampoo (Try: a little greasy?  Rub in some baking soda at your scalp & see how it works for you!)

·         Vinegar

§ Hair Rinse

§ Body wash

13.   Bought plastic free, chlorine free feminine  products

14.   Made my juice from concentrate

15.   Eating way more fruits and veggies  for snacks and smoothies

16.   Home-made muffins instead of granola/cereal bars in lunches

17.   Opted out of straws & lids at restaurants

18.   Already owned Tupperware instead of sandwich baggies

19.   Made my own chips: Potato & Kale  (Surprisingly tasty, actually!)

20.   Bought wax paper to replace saran wrap in some cases

 

And some nice side-effects of the efforts:

1.       Eating healthier, fresher food

2.       New relationship with food: Spending the time & energy on it makes it far less appealing to down a few hours’ worth of work in a TV sitting.

3.       Avoiding unknown chemicals in toiletries and processed foods

4.       Spending the same amount of money on less food, but not wasting so much of it (How many of your fresh fruits and vegetables end up in the trash after going bad in the fridge?  I had a lot more before!)

5.       Avoiding toxic cleaning fumes 

6.       Teaching my son by example

7.       Spreading awareness with every question about plastic and through this blog (I decided to blog about this from the beginning because I feel it’s important to share the information I learn.)

8.       Only one bag of trash this week (Normally about 2, already low due to recycling & composting)

9.       Only one recycling container (Usually 2 and overflowing!)  Most of it is from remnants of plastic still lingering around the house

 

I’m not keeping track to brag, or to show off  'my footprint is smaller than yours’.  I’m doing this to give examples of changes that have an effect.  I don’t expect anyone else to give up all plastics, and don’t assume I’ll be able to.  This is an experiment in living without new plastic to see just how difficult it is.  I have time to shop different places, money to spend at natural food stores which are admittedly more expensive, and the interest in changing things up to an extreme that I don’t expect anyone else does.  In doing so, I hope to bring awareness to some people, and maybe influence a person or two to make some small changes.  And, let’s face it, I’m absolutely fascinated by this process and just want to share some of the ideas that I had no clue about until I started researching it!