Last week I posted my pledges for Zero Waste Week 2015, which runs from 7th-13th September this year. It’s Day 3 today and I thought I’d let you know how I was getting on. It’s been harder than I thought, not only to avoid buying plastic, but also to avoid consuming it. Still, I’m trying my best and these are my positives:

• I took brown paper bags and a roll of greaseproof paper to the wholefood shop and the kind shop owner also agreed to wrap the ham in greaseproof paper and put it in a paper bag for me.
• The butcher then also agreed to wrap all the meat in greaseproof paper as well, as long as I wasn’t buying anything ‘messy’ like liver, which I wasn’t. He even took the bacon out of its plastic packaging to wrap it in greaseproof for me and wished me ‘good luck’ when I left.
• I’ve wrapped my daughter’s sandwiches in greaseproof paper or put them in a brown paper bag.
• I’ve taken cloth shopping bags with me every time I’ve been shopping and so has my husband.

My negatives:

• I didn’t manage to sort out a milk delivery from the dairy, so we’re still buying milk in plastic containers.
• I ran out of greaseproof paper at the butcher’s, so the pork ribs are in a plastic bag.
• I’ve succumbed to buying snacks in plastic for the rest of the contents of my daughter’s packed lunches. I intended to bake a batch of oaty banana muffins at the start of the week for packed lunches, but I haven’t had time, so muesli bars and crackers will have to do.
• I am still consuming the plastic that I purchased last week; fruit and vegetable bags, packaging for toilet rolls, dishwasher tablet wrappers, etc.

The theme for Zero Waste Week 2015 is Reuse. To this end, I have reused postage bags from Ebay purchases to line the kitchen bin, used the toilet roll packaging to line the bathroom bin and used fruit and vegetable bags for the compost under the sink.

It may not be going quite as well as I hoped, but it’s certainly making me realise just how hard it is to avoid buying and consuming plastic.