I have covered the renovation side of this blog mostly up to now, but lets get into the "green" part of ItsAGreenHouse for a little while!
Back at the start of 2017 my new years resolution was to cut out 80% of the single use plastic in our household. I didn't expect we could cut it all out, but had seen so many things going around social media about plastic in the oceans and how that plastic bottle of water will still be around in hundreds of years time so I felt I had to do something and 80% over a year seemed doable.
I found it actually really easy to cut out the 80%, and am now at the point where (if we were not renovating a house as its unfortunately a messy process) we could only put our landfill bin out once a month with household waste or maybe even longer as we generally put one small bag in there once a week or so. We put out 2 or 3 recycling boxes every fortnight and the food bin as and when. Now we have the allotment we compost most food waste.
If you are thinking about starting this process it can seem daunting but it really is easier than it looks if you don't overthink it and just try to do the best you can. So bearing that in mind and keeping things simple, here are my top 10 tips to reduce plastic waste:
1 - Where to start - To get started I would recommend one of two approaches. Either start with changes you will find easiest (whether small or large) to get you going and then look at other things as you go, or identify what your biggest waste producing things are and start there for a big reduction right away. Looking at your weekly or fortnightly rubbish or recycling really helps this as you can see there plain as day what you have thrown away rather than having to try and think back about what you used this month. You can then focus on things that you know will make a big difference to the amount of waste you are producing. For us this was food packaging of various forms, cat litter (in a small bin liner each time it was emptied), cleaning products and carrier bags.
2 - Toiletries and cleaning products - Some of the super easy swaps that I found we hardly even noticed were cleaning and body products. It was quite simple changing from a soap bottle to a bar of soap, changing to a shampoo bar (once I found the one that agreed with my hair from IUVO Skincare), changing to bamboo toothbrushes and changing from shower gel and facial cleanser to a bar of soap and a facial soap.
Obviously taken before the bathroom was finished! My conditioner (purple bar from lush), shampoo (IUVO Skincare), facial soap (IUVO Skincare) and body soap (any brand works for us and I usually get whatever is on offer, we currently have Faith in Nature) with my body brush.
I also make my own toner from rose water and witch hazel (just literally mix them up in a glass bottle!) but there are lots of glass packaged cleansers and toners out there.
I use a Facetheory daily light moisturiser and night serum, an anti ageing moisturiser that I use as an eye cream (it was a bit too intense for every day use for my skin but is really moisturising so works great for under the eyes and any dry skin I get) from Eden Days Body, and have some lovely face scrubs and masks from Heavenly Organics Skincare. I may try making my own scrub after I finish this as you can see all the essential oil blends lined up behind from QuetMind Wellbeing who I get a monthly subscription box from so I could mix those with some sea salt.
Cleaning products were relatively easy to a certain extent too, I whittled it down to only bleach, cream cleaner and washing up liquid in plastic pretty fast, I have now phased out the bleach since getting a steam cleaner and have found a local place I can refill washing up liquid and cream cleaner (Foodloose in Cheltenham for anyone local, there is also Fill your boots in Gloucester). Washing powder and dishwasher tablets in cardboard are also widely available in supermarkets. I will cover these products in their own post I think as they are something that a lot of people ask about.
3 - Fruit and veg - I also found it reasonably easy to change to getting some loose fruit and veg in the supermarket, or if not there in the local greengrocers. Check out your local shops to see who has the best plastic free fruit and veg selection, we seem to be lucky with our local Sainsburys which helps! Asda also do a wonky veg box which has lots of loose veg in just a cardboard box. I have a few cotton veg bags but often just use my shopping bags for them as well. The only things I still get in plastic are leafy greens like lettuce, spinach and kale - but I plan to grow these at the allotment this year! This is our first year with the allotment so at the time this was written I was still buying a lot of veg.
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| Cotton fruit and veg bags are really handy, even used for refills of pasta etc. |
4 - Bottles and cups - Getting into the habit of taking a water bottle with you everywhere also really helps, I have a nice insulated one that keeps water cold on hot days so that I am not tempted to buy a cold drink in a plastic bottle. I am not a big coffee drinker so haven't bothered with a coffee cup, and if I want to take tea out with me I can take it in my flask but lots of coffee shops also do a discount if you use your own cup (covid allowing) so it is worth changing to one if you do drink coffee.
5 - Carrier bags - I always take a shopping bag or tote bag with me in my handbag or backpack, you can get ones which fold down quite small to fit into a pocket or smaller bag. I find they are also much easier to carry than plastic bags cutting into your hands, and you can gain back a kitchen drawer or cabinet without having all the carrier bags hoarded in there once they are used up (we all have the carrier bag cupboard of doom!). You can run them through the washing machine after going food shopping if you are concerned about reusing bags due to covid.
6- Food on the go - If you are able to taking lunch to work with you is also a good step, as it stops the packaged sandwiches or bags of crisps. I have always done this anyway as I like to take healthy lunch options to work and it saves a lot of money. Taking sandwiches or things like pasta salad, fajitas, wraps, soup, salad, cous cous, chili etc is much more interesting than a packaged sandwich every day too!
7 - Menstrual products are also something that can cause a lot of plastic waste, there are lots of other options such as washable pads, underwear or reusable cups. You can also potentially save a fortune on reusable products despite the upfront cost. Reading various sources it seems that the average UK spend is somewhere between £130 to £500 a year on "period products" (depending on what you class as a period product seems to affect the total - some surveys include things like new underwear/clothing, chocolate, painkillers etc which aren't going to be saved by washable pads). I spent £20 on my first set of washable pads and I still have them. I started with some cheap ones as I was just testing the waters and didn't want to spend lots if I didn't get on with them, but there are loads of lovely handmade ones around too that I will try when these get to the end of their life (eventually they will wear out and lose absorbency I suppose but they seem fine still). Trying a few different shapes and styles is going to be key so that you can find ones that suit you. I find them much more soft, comfortable and nice to use than disposables and they were much less of a faff than I thought they would be! The pants are also really good for use in the gym or cycling and on those "not sure if its arriving or finished" days.
8 - Cat Litter - For us we solved the carrier bag and cat litter issue together and started using up the carrier bags we had already to put the cat litter in instead of buying bin liners for that job. Now we have whittled those down and started using reusable bags I use the small biodegradable food bags (which we already buy for the food waste bin). We may look at changing to wood pellet or paper litter from the gravelly type as you can compost wood or paper cat litter if it will not be used on edible plants as well but we don't have that set up yet in the garden we only have the compost bins at the allotment and wouldn't be able to use it there.
9 - Food waste - We actually do not waste a lot of food and the main of our food bin was tea leaves and vegetable peelings which are now all composted. I think this is due to a few things which you could look at if you do find you waste a lot of food. Firstly we don't over purchase food, I know what we will eat in a week and only buy enough fresh food so that it will all get eaten. If I do ever stock up its on frozen, dried/tinned foods or foods that can be frozen. Excess veg is often par boiled then frozen or batch cooked into something then frozen. Secondly portion control, when we cook we try to only make enough that we will eat unless I am purposely making more to take for lunch the next day. Thirdly freezing and storage, if we do have leftover food (usually pasta) or a surplus of veg from the allotment it gets put in a pot and either frozen right away or I will take it to work the next day for lunch. Making use of your freezer will definitely help reduce food waste, Tom also made some jams and chutneys last year which we will definitely expand on this year as it was actually relatively simple.
10 - Food packaging - This is where we still struggle to a certain extent. In lots of ways we have made good swaps like loose leaf tea rather than bags (who knew there was plastic in tea bags?!), olive oil in glass or the large metal containers and decanted, the odd bottle of squash I buy in a glass bottle rather than plastic, oats in paper or card rather than plastic, lots of the Linda McCartney frozen vegan foods are in card packaging only too like sausages and burgers, also just buying less of the stuff like crisps, biscuits, breakfast bars etc and either doing without or making our own - which is healthier and cheaper too.
I am also lucky that we have a great refill shop nearby where I can get lots of dried goods like pasta, spaghetti, cereals, cocoa powder, nuts, seeds, spices and loads more refilled and packaging free! Its also really reasonably priced. Its worth looking to see if there is one in your local area.
However, I cannot get on with making my own oat milk no matter how many recipes I try so I still buy tetrapack plant milks. I learnt to make my own bread, but don't always have the time (having more freezer space has helped with this as I can make multiple loaves at once and freeze some), I try to make as many meals from scratch as I can, but again don't always have the time. Sometimes time constraints and convenience wins the day, and sometimes it is just a necessity at the time and there isn't any other option (for example in the current climate my shopping options have been limited somewhat to what is open or available). This is why I originally aimed to reduce plastic use by 80% because it felt like the odd packaged pizza or bag of chips was going to be hard to avoid!
I think realistically making these 10 changes to the way we shop and think we have reduced our plastic usage by at least the 80% target, maybe even more as the majority of our recycling bin is now paper, card, glass or tin and the landfill bin has been drastically reduced.
At the end of the day any steps you can take will help, even if its only one small change! If everybody in the UK was conscious about it and just tried to buy two or three alternatives a week that would make a massive difference.
Share in the comments if you have any top tips or any questions, I may do more of these waste reducing posts so if you have any questions fire away and I can look into answers :)
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