Adventures without plastic

We're on day 27 and our month is nearly up. Mum has been thinking a lot about what we can continue and what things we can't. We've said before that even in a month there are things we've either not run out of (eg rice) or simply put off buying (like plimsolls and an art portfolio for school). So how and what we sustain is really important to think about. Mum also wants to help other people reduce their reliance on plastic too. So, she's starting a series of pledges... Commitments that we (and you) can sign up to which will reduce our reliance on plastic and make the world a nicer place. You can start with just one if you like. I pledge to never ever use a plastic straw again I pledge to return plastic packaging to companies who use it needlessly I pledge to only buy clothes that are made from natural fibres I pledge to never buy or use cling film again I pledge to buy the plastic free option whenever it's available and I can afford it I pledge to stop buying sha

This post is really about yesterday and how easy it is to forget that you're on an adventure and do what you did before it started. Yesterday we went to a green woodworking event. We learnt about lichens and made string a split logs and watched spoons and bows and chairs being made. And we had lunch. We didn't take a packed lunch like we usually do, we thought we'd have lunch in the cafe. We had 2 sandwiches, soup and a scone, a kids packed lunch box, a coffee and a lemonade between us. Both sandwiches came in cardboard boxes with plastic windows and every item in the kids lunchbox was plastic wrapped. We (or rather mum) had just bought lunch without thinking about plastic! In a few days, we'll reach the end of the month that we committed to not buying plastic and I think we're all thinking about what we can and can't continue to do which will help reduce the plastics in our home and in our bins and in our world. Yesterday just reminded us how much we've had

ANOTHER FAIL!!!!! we came across some tasty looking plums and bought them. Little did we know that all of them had a plastic sticker on them... (But anyways please could someone tell me what day this is of our plastic free month.) It's also turns out that sainsburys do toilet paper sheets in a card box for 89 pence but the cheeky panda stuff in booths that we use only costs 66 pence per roll. That's all I can think of at the moment so if you want to keep in tune with what is going on please read our blog.

So we are now three weeks into our adventure without plastic and a part of me never wants to go back but another part of me is craving the day I can buy ice cream and frozen peas! I wanted to discuss food shopping and dietary restrictions. I used to be vegetarian but I'm not any longer. I'm allergic to lots of different things including some very key ingredients to Northern European cookery like potatoes! When your diet is restricted by allergy, intolerance, illness, finances, religion or choice, you are already limited on your food shopping choices. The more restricted your dietary needs, the more difficult giving up plastic will be. The more perishable and less frequently purchased foods are shrink wrapped in the stuff to prolong their shelf life. For me that means that my allergies prevent me from eating tomatoes, potatoes and barley. My plastic free life prevents me from eating peas, lettuce, crackers and cream. If I were unlucky enough to be coeliac, I'd probably have

Yet another day has passed and we had used up all of our milk and had to ask for some more... I have to say though, the sourdough loaf looks really good but I am still yet to try some. But mum says it's good so I'll just have to trust her on that one. The toilet paper (cheeky panda) seems to be ok, but it's nearly twice as expensive. And now we are running out of cheese again but thankfully that isn't too hard to deal with. Pet food is a big problem. Dog food tins cost less to buy wrapped in plastic than it is to buy individually. Small animal food for hamsters, rabbits, Guinea pigs etc all come in plastic as does the bedding and straw and sawdust. Chicken feed also comes in plastic and we haven't found an alternative. Thankfully they don't eat so much feed as they forage for worms and slugs. Our first milk bill arrived and because we've really cut down on how much milk we drink it's cost approximately twice as much as buying what we normally use in 2

Sorry for the delay, I was away for the past couple of days but now that I'm back I can carry on posting to the blog. Well Morrisons seem to be interested in this project and have been quite helpful too and gave us some fresh yeast for bread. Mum's sourdough starter is bubbling away and she's in the middle of the very long kneading and proving phase of our first homemade sourdough loaves. And mum seems to be thinking a lot about frozen peas and how we can get hold of them without plastic and she's thinking a lot about 'supply chain' and how if we were to really try as a family to live without plastic, we'd need a small holding, a very large freezer and she wouldn't have the time to go to work with all the gardening she'd need to do! For example, we can go to a shop and take our own pots and fill them with cheese or ham or rice or whatever but you can bet that it has travelled at some point and been packaged in plastic. When the end of our month c