Day 12

Welcome to Day 12!

We’ve discussed ditching your plastic shopping bags, but what about all those small bags we use to store our fruit and veggies? Let’s talk about:

– Unpackaged produce  –

Firstly, please desist from buying pre-wrapped produce. Not only does it produce a lot of waste from the polystyrene tray and the gladwrap, the humidity from being so tightly packed in means that often one or more of those capsicums will have gone bad by the time you unwrap them – you just can’t see it from the outside. You want to have a full 360 degree view of your produce to choose fresh, every time.

For loose produce, you can find a variety of plastic free produce bags on sale in many of the bulk food stores I suggested on Day 6, but to give you an idea, here’s a company that stocks produce bags, amongst many other items: https://www.onyalife.com/product/reusable-produce-bag-8pack

If your purse is spent after your eco-shopping spree, another alternative to the bag is just to ask for – or bring – a box to transport your produce.

Apart from bulk stores and farmers markets, there’s also another way you can source your produce through exchange. If you’ve got an abundance of feijoas growing in your backyard and not even your workmates will eat them anymore, a weekend food swap could be just the ticket.

What is a food swap?
A food swap is a weekend community stall that gives you the chance to swap your food trash for someone else’s treasures, namely a lifetime supply of kale for some delicate finger limes or maybe a jar of homemade marinated olives. You don’t need to book in ahead, just turn up on the day. It’s also a nice way to get to know your community and see what’s growing in your area.

Sold! Where are they?
The Moreland Food Network have a good list of food swaps in Moreland and beyond: http://www.morelandfoodgardensnetwork.org/p/victorian-food-swaps-z.html

In Hume, Enviro Champ Polly is doing us proud having set up her own food swap in Sunbury – so if any of these options seem to far away for you, maybe you could do the same! You can find her on the Facebook at Harvest Sunbury. Go champs!

Day 10

Welcome to Day 10!

Firstly, did you watch War on Waste last night? It provided an eye opening follow up to our Day 8 post on plastic bags. Firstly, plastic bags in biodegradable bags are really not much better than regular bags. They simply break down into smaller particles, which make it more likely that our wildlife will mistake them for food. Plastic bags in any form are not the answer.

It also turns out that the plastic bags in the recycled Coles bins are not recycled here in Australia but flown overseas to be processed into plastic pellets, which are then reconstituted into recycled plastic. The bags in the Woolworths bins? It’s unclear whether they’re not just going to landfill.

Meanwhile, flying our waste to Indonesia and China is creating a pretty big carbon footprint, and what are the conditions like for the workers who have to sort through it when it gets there? Here’s a preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Kif9cugQ0

So with that sobering thought, let’s move on to today’s focus on:

~  Plastic bottles ~

Right up there with plastic bottles is bottled water. Here in Melbourne we have some of the highest quality drinking water in the world, so why do we still buy bottled water, particularly when most of the production cost is just going towards the packaging and the packaging itself has been?

I’m going to speak to for myself, since I have bought bottled water: convenience. I don’t have a bottle with me, I’m thirsty, I want to hold on until I get to my destination but I’m too..parched…need..water…

So I buy myself the bottle, thinking, it’s ok, I’ll reuse it, but then I start feeling uncomfortable about the PET toxins I know are leaching into the water through the bottle, and the bottle itself starts getting smelly, so I recycle it. It’s ok, right? I’ve recycled it!

The first thing to point out is your lid cannot be recycled. So you need to discard that into your garbage bin.

Now, the bottle.

What happens to a lot of plastic products is that they are not so much recycled as downcycled. This means that they are made into a lower grade plastic which, once it’s used, can NO LONGER BE RECYCLED.

At this point, I’d like you to take another look through your recycling bin audit and consider the possibility that the end of the line for all your plastic bottles could be landfill.

 

 

Let’s debrief.

Up until a few weeks ago, this was new information for me. I learnt this by listening to this Ted Talk by Bea Johnson.

Like anyone for whom this is new information, it came as a shock. I tried to avoid packaging on principle, but I justified buying bottled drinks because I knew I could recycle them.

Knowing what I know now, I have to re-evaluate. Luckily, there are other options:

1. Buy yourself a lovely BPA free water bottle, one that meets your needs, be it for weight, size, or design. You’re going to bring it everywhere with you, so invest the time into selecting something that you’re going to want to use and display daily. Many of our choices are about solidifying our identity, and if your water bottle is going to be a permanent accessory, you want one that you’re proud of.
2. If you find yourself stuck without your trusty bottle, buy your liquids in a glass bottle. Glass can be recycled back into bottles or jars, so it’s a much better choice because it has a closed loop recycling system.
3. Consider what you are buying in plastic bottles. Why are you buying them? Do you really need these items? If not, what’s the alternative?

My plastic bottles contained juice, a smoothie and a lemon myrtle drink I bought when I was feeling a bit sick. My alternatives could be actually purchasing fruit in lieu of a juice (which I know is a healthier option anyway because it is less concentrated), buying a blender so that I can make my own smoothies, and making my own tea. Having done my neighbourhood reconnaissance on Day 5, I know there’s lemon myrtle growing along a nearby fence line, so that can be my go-to medicinal tea – it’s free, I don’t have to walk as far as the supermarket and once I’m done it will go straight into the compost.  Now that’s closing the loop!

Day 8

Welcome to Day 8 and congratulations on having completed your first week of the Zero Waste Challenge! How have you been going with your pledges? What was the most interesting or challenging thing you learnt about during our focus on food waste?

Here’s my pledge report:

Pledge 1
I’m proud to report that I have not so much as looked at a chocolate bar this week-why? Just been too busy working on the Zero Waste Challenge!

Pledge 2
I haven’t done as well on the home cooking front – for the same reason above! – but I have made a huge batch of cereal from scratch, so that’s my breakfast for the week sorted, and I also made a couple of rounds of bliss balls to take to friends’ dinners – now I’ve just got to make a batch for myself and I’ll have my daily work snack set!

Pledge 3
I’m really pleased to have found a great site which details what items can be recycled in Victoria -win! http://
http://www.getitrightbinnight.vic.gov.au

There’s more aspects of food waste I’d like to explore with you, but for now let’s put our plates aside and move onto an issue that, judging from your introductory surveys, plays on your minds and also in your bins. I’m talking about:

– single use plastics –

What are single use plastics?

Single use plastics are plastic items that have been designed to be used for a few minutes and then thrown away, most commonly disposable items from stores, take away shops, parties or work functions. It’s one of the simplest things that we can change, but also can be the most difficult. Why?

In short, habit. We are in the habit of accepting these items and throwing them away, because it easy, convenient and it doesn’t cost us anything – and one of the single use plastics that we use most often is plastic bags.

How do I stop using plastic bags?

1. Start by reducing your need for bags to put your rubbish in, which means reducing your waste – tick!

2. Get yourself a handy tote bag or backpack to use as a replacement for shopping bags. You’ll want to consider the materials that your replacement bag is made of, but for the time being, before going out and purchasing anything, just use whatever you have got at home. Panniers are a great way to transport shopping on a bike.

3. Take 80% of your existing plastic bags from your home and put them in the plastic bag recycling box at Coles and Woolworths. Chances are you won’t miss them and if you do find you’re running low, just go grab some out of the bag recycle box next time you’re passing. You want to reduce your dependence on the bags and the normality of having them accessible in your house.

4. Always carry a couple of small bags to use in the moments where you buy items unexpectedly. If that happens to be at a supermarket and you’re out of bags, just grab one from the recycle box.

Want to find out more? The documentary of the week is Bag It: http://www.bagitmovie.com/index.html

See you tomorrow!