Ice cream is ok!

It's taken us a whole month to realise that our local coop has an own brand ice cream which is- you guessed it- PLASTIC -FREE!! Well (mostly plastic-free, apart from the film round the top which is so small I'm choosing to ignore it).

I can't believe we only noticed this today, which is officially Jan's last plastic free day. A month without ice cream has been one of the toughest things (!)...

Ice cream is ok! Let the plastic-free living continue!

Newhaven Fest 23 September

It is so easy!

If you know where to buy your plastic-free stuff and you compromise on your cravings a wee bit it is actually quite simple to do. Even in the big supermarkets just ask them to put it in your tupperware (like cheese and meat). They'll be happy to do this (and some even praise you!). Look at today's shopping.

6 rashers of bacon and 3 sausages: Crombies - £4.21 - no waste
Refill 250 grams espresso coffee beans (they grind it for you if you want): Real Foods - £4.87 - no waste
Greens, bagel and cheese: Morrissons - Cheese from the Deli counter is much cheaper than the pre-packed stuff £6 per kg - no waste
Black Isle Beer: £1.50 (on deal at Tesco!) - glass bottle and metal lid

We emptied our bin bag when we started the plastic-free month (18 days ago) and that very same bag is only 1/3 filled with stuff we bought before this month. The rest is recyclable waste. Feelin' good about it!!

THE PERILS OF POOR PLANNING

A clearly knackered Farmer G trudges up a big hill during an enormous day-long hike -  fuelled by the only plastic-free food he could find - two apples - and no fluids.  Ending up, unsuprisingly, with a huge dehydration headache and mammoth hunger pangs. Thankfully, Sheona had the foresight to bring a metal water bottle and steal lots of leftover breakfast from the hostel, so at least she was OK.  I suppose I could have bought some water and taken a fine, but self-fining is the moral equivalent of a 12th century knight pre-buying repentance for his impending war crimes - the poor can't afford to buy themselves environmental smugness!

Calzone

So happy that the calzone came in a paper bag!! Got away there!

Laundry of shame

As predicted, travelling and staying plastic free Is a little difficult. Having found out that I get my washing done free of charge because apparently I'm a VIP guest at the quite fancy hotel I'm staying in in Tunis (ha ha...no idea why, but don't question it!)... I foolishly sent my laundry off...

And this is what I found in my room on return.... Argh!! Plastic overload!!

Soda Stream

Disclaimer:  This product is approximately 90% plastic.  I mean, have you tried to buy an appliance made entirely from metal recently?  They still exist but cost something around £695 and your first-born child.

In any event, Jim - being the gadget geekster that he is - could barely contain his enthusiasm for this little bit of plastic-reduction love.  And it eliminates the need ever again to purchase bottles, plastic or glass, of the divine fizz.

Yep, that's a plastic radio/IPod charger next to the plastic Soda Stream.  So shoot us.

This is where things get exciting:

Vroom, vroom!

The kit comes with three (plastic) bottles in which to store the final product.

The kitchen scale is Italian and NOT plastic.  Those people really know how to do it.

At least those plastic bottles are not headed for the landfill.  And that's the point, is it not?

You could hold us to a £1 fine for buying new plastic but I will lobby hard and long for the point of this purchase.  Contemplate that as you haul a week's worth of glass bottles down four flights of stairs to the recycling bin.

LIST OF SHAME

FARMER FURIOUS AT UNEXPECTED & NEEDLESS PLASTIC PACKAGING

.... and to make matters worse, the blogosphere is now humiliatingly aware that I bought an Alexander McCall Smith book off ebay.

So far, living without buying new plastic has given us some problems, but most have been surmountable by careful planning or simply gritting one's teeth and not buying some stuff we like for a month.

However - despite buyng Lush's ludicrous toothytabs, instigating an all-Greggs breakfast regime, sacrificing the glories of the Nak'd bar and sporting broken shin guards all month (if I break  my shin in September, I'm suing Carrie) - several unexpected pieces of plastic have slipped through the net!

So, one week in, here is the full, unedited List of Shame....

• Two poor-quality books from ebay, needlessly shrink-wrapped.  (Top tip for future eBay purchases is to email the seller in advance.) 
• Similarly pointelss small piece of plastic on top of my Greggs cream doughnut.  I blame Mark Henderson, who convinced me that Greggs was a safe bet.
• Mr Shapla!  You may be the best Indian takeaway in Edinburgh, but we reckoned without the small tub of yoghurt for the pakora and that wee bag of salad people throw straight in the bin anyway.
• One disastrously unplanned scone-buying episode.
• And what is going on with the Demijohn glass bottle of spicy rum liqueur?  It's already got a cork in it - why add the little slither of plastic?  Aaaarrghhh.  Nice rum, though.

However, as Ghandi said* - "there is nothing so sad as a man who does nothing becasue he cannot do it all" ...... overall we are vaguely satisfied with our team's performance, are learning from our occassional slip-ups and looking forward to our first post-challenge bag of Monster Munch.

*maybe

:)

Hurrah!

Plastic-Free Jocktoberfest - The Other Side of the Story

Alas, Jocktoberfest was only plastic-free for beer consumers.  For those of us who eschew the grain in favour of the grape, it was an entirely different matter.  Witness the following:

Who invited YOU?

Not that I didn't try.  When requested to refill my plastic cup upon re-order, the staff at Black Isle - the same good people who said absolutely no glass allowed on their certified organic, crunchy granola, Mother Earth farm - poured my preferred elixir into......another plastic cup.

Caught in the act

Given the amount of wine I imbibed over the two days of the festival, I will probably be buying the first three rounds of drinks at the end of September.

Plastic Free Jocktoberfest @ Black Isle

Every festival I've been to in the past was bound to be a plastic waste disaster. We planned a pilgrimage to beer / music festival Jocktoberfest organised by the Black Isle Brewery. They lived up to their motto "Save the planet, drink organic" by serving beer in glasses made of plant starch (which is compostable). Thanks Black Isle!

Inflight and plastic free? No chance!!

I've only been travelling for about 3 hours, and my attempts to stay plastic- free equal a big fat FAIL.

Too hungry to refuse the plastic triple-wrapped pasta salad, with separate plastic wrapped bread sticks, and a plastic fork which had its very own plastic wrapping (thank goodness it didn't touch the bread sticks), all enclosed inside the pasta salad plastic wrapped box- I had no choice but to compensate with a glass bottle of beer!

It's not looking good for a plastic free week overseas!

I will survive!!

When I started the No Plastic Challenge I had a few worries. The biggest one was cookies. Unless you're willing to pay £1.60 for a cookie at Starbucks and the likes there is no way you can buy cookies plastic free. In fact, it is often triple wrapped in shiny and shouting packaging.

And to be fair, often the cookies themselves are a bit rubbish. Lot's of sugar, low quality ingredients.

So Carrie came up with the idea of making cookies ourselves. I  never thought it would be so easy (ok, the first batch was made by Carrie, but she urged it is dead easy).

Now there are three rolls of cookie dough in the freezer. Every time I crave cookies I can chuck a slice of oatmeal/cranberry or chocolate/walnut in the oven and 15 minutes later voila, freshly baked cookies! And that just makes me extremely happy.

And I did a great discovery at the Real Foods store today. Crunchy peanut butter in glass jar with metal lid (big jar £3.85). There is a God! Ask Carrie how much peanut butter I can eat. I never get sick of it. So I think I will survive the month...

Juice for Carrie!

Packaging plays with your mind!  Has anyone noticed how oranges in those net bag things are more expensive than if you buy individual oranges?  So very strange.  30p for individual oranges, but up to 55 pence if in a package.  Surely thats an argument for going packaging free?!




We noticed this the other day as we were shopping for oranges for home -made juice in the mornings.   We have one of those electric squeezer things so its really quick to do - and tastes so much nicer than store bought juices.   If you are not already doing this, I'd definitely recommend it - its a very happy way to start the day!





Likewise, if anyone is missing buying cordial or squash in plastic bottles, here is my latest discovery from the Leon cookbook - home made lemonade!

170g fructose (or a third more sugar if you want to use that, it's less sweet)
165ml water
250 ml of lemon or lime juice

Shove the fructose or sugar in a pan with the water, and heat until it dissolves.  leave to cool.  In the meantime squeeze the lemons / limes.  When the sugar solution is cool, add the lemon / lime juice.  Put into a bottle (glass of course!) and keep in fridge.  Use like a cordial.   Its delicious and takes about 5 mins to make.

You can get some cordials / squashes in glass bottles but they are pretty expensive!  I'm trying to find cheaper alternatives...   I make this every time I see there are lemons or limes on deal at the local veg shop (strangely, quite often - I got a bag of 12 limes for 49 pence yesterday) - so it works out pretty cheap.

Anyone else have other good juice or squash ideas?

OR - even better - recipes for plastic-free cocktails?  Apparently Mark created a ginger ale, elderflower cordial, fresh lime and spiced rum cocktail last night...so good he had three.   perhaps we should have a mid-month cocktail challenge... anyone up for it?

Is this plastic? Argh... that's a fine for me!

What do you think?

 I think it might be aluminium foil, with paper on the inside - and laminated outside.  Drat!  That's a pound fine for me then - this is the only butter not in a plastic box in my local store, and I was halfway through cooking when I realised I needed more.  no chance to jump on my bike to the bigger supermarket where they have wax paper wrapped butter.

So - Jan is on £2 for fines (he bought some cheese from LJ Mellis and it came in a plastic wrap, and  a 4 pack of Grolsch which he then realised had plastic round the top... this is tough!!).  I'm also on £2 for above mentioned butter.  Doh.

Drinks at the end of the month should be good!!    How is everyone else doing?!

Lush

Following Paul's post about toothy tabs and shampoo soap yesterday, I paid a visit to our friends at Lush.  I explained our plastic-free challenge to the salesperson and asked what products around the shop would qualify.  Her answer?  All of them.  She said that we could even buy liquid products in our own containers if desired.  Will they actually allow this?  For those who are in the market for the fruity delight of Lush shower gels, do let us know.

Ladies and Gentlemen - I give you...

PLASTIC-FREE PASTA!!

I am so excited I can hardly sit still.  Barilla pasta (blue cardboard box) does all sorts of pastas, completely plastic-free.  And with spaghetti at £1.39 it's not completely unaffordable.

I found it at Peckhams in Newington - along with affordable cheddar cheese (£1.05 per 100g), wrapped in paper.  Yes!

Now all I need to find are dried fruit and nuts with no plastic.  Can anyone help out there?  

I am now the proud owner of lush toothy tabs. They foam really well and come in various different flavours. I chose dirty which contains spearmint but have since been told that Ultrablast is very good as it contains wasabi, which is a very good anti bacterial! Not sure if I want to test that one out!

The Dirty toothy Tab!

I also bought a shampoo bar. only one bar of shampoo is the equivalent of using four 500g plastics containers of shampoo!

AND for the follically challenged among us out there (you know who you are!) the clove shampoo bar that I bought is supposed to help stimulate the scalp and hair follicles and would that not mean then in some case perhaps  to help re-generate hair! Well watch this space .....

I'm loving it. Never had such smooth hair!

Something Fishy

People, do you know how hard it is to buy fish without plastic wrapping?  Even when you have a happily compliant fishmonger, such as the good people at G. Armstrong in Stockbridge?  Some fish don't mind a bit of paper - witness Exhibit No. 1, hot smoked salmon:







  Plays well with others

Things fall apart - literally - when using normal paper to wrap smoked salmon.  However, your intrepid author was determined to obtain said morning staple plastic-free (other than the used Tesco bag in which to carry the finished product).  The result is smoked salmon with an unexpected second skin:

Oh dear, oh dear.......

Nothing that a little rinse under the faucet won't remedy.