Days 12 & 13, dog walking, litter picking and Matt from Morrisons

Yesterday was Sunday and we had a lovely walk in the South Western Lake District. A quieter part of the Lakes, and yet we still encountered McDonald's drinks containers and broken straws, needless to say we picked up what we found and deposited it in the bin. But that only partly solves the problem. It removes the immediate risk of the wild birds and rodents or the sheep or cattle grazing from eating the litter and coming to harm. But the plastic will end up in landfill where it won't ever break down and has the potential to make our soil toxic and harm animals and people in the future with goodness knows what unforeseen unintended consequences.

We have also had some really great news. Mum has been trying to find beeswax (that isn't packaged in plastic) so she can help others make beeswax wraps. She got in touch with our local beekeeper a association who've said they think they can help which is brilliant. Thank you Kendal Beekeepers :)

Mum hasn't been able to get cream though. Our local farm have had to temporarily suspend selling their raw milk due to having calves which is completely understandable but means the banoffee pie can't be made :(

Today mum went to Morrisons to pick up a few things. She managed to get cheese this time, sealed in wax just as cheese should be. She got an old yoghurt pot filled with minced steak from the butchers counter after a little persuasion that they use the pot rather than a piece of plastic film to weigh the mince in. When she got to the till she thought she'd better make sure the cashier realised it wasn't yoghurt and scanned the right barcode and explained about our adventure. The cashier said we needed to speak to Matt and promptly called over to a colleague and very soon Matt appeared. Matt is the customer experience consultant (hope we got his job title right). He was really interested in our adventure and told us that they're getting bottle return banks installed too. He's asked us to come back again in a couple of weeks and feedback to him properly which we think is ace. It means they're listening and will get to know how we find it to shop without plastic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3rd day and mum still hasn't phoned the milkmanšŸ˜³

Yesterday was our 3rd day of living without plastic. Each day makes us aware of another thing that we don't know how to get without plastic- either because it is made from plastic or because it is packaged with plastic. We are having to do lots of research! I need some new pyjamas but most clothes shops use plastic hangers (we can give those back and they can be re-used but that still involves plastic in the process, which, as we know doesn't break down) and even more shops use little plastic loops to attach the price tags! In town there are two shops that use string or ribbon to attach price tags- fat face and white stuff (well done for using wooden hangers too) but they don't sell PJs for children or teens. We also found that we can buy things from the deli counter in Booths without plastic. They wouldn't put things in our re-useable tubs but they did (after a long conversation about how greasy the paper would get) agree to using paper bags that we could then put in o...
Read more

Half way and a day

Eek, this is becoming more normal! And we’re starting to see the fun. We got some junk mail today in a brown envelope with a see through window. We assume the window is plastic so we’re sending it back in the helpful self addressed pre-paid envelope! Because we’re running low on yeast, mum has made a sour dough starter which is ace because we love sourdough bread. And it’s easy. You just whisk a cup of flour and a cup of warm water together and then leave it until it starts to bubble then you add another cup of flour and another cup of warm water. I’ll let you know how it goes. We’re getting worried about pet food now. We had already gone to using tins of dog food but it’s cheaper to buy them in packs of 6 but they come wrapped in... you guessed it, plastic :-( I don’t get why or even how it’s cheaper to buy 6 cans with plastic than 6 cans without. How does that make sense- you pay less to get something extra that you don’t want?! We also have hens to feed and their food comes in ...
Read more

Day 5 of a plastic free month

Image
Day 5 is almost over. And we have successfully sorted out Sunday dinner (toad in the hole). So that's alright. This morning our local  Quaker meeting invited us to talk to them about our adventures without plastic. After the meeting we explained what we are doing and why. Everyone was very supportive and told us all the things they do to minimise the amount of plastic they use. Someone told us about re-useable wraps that the shop Lakeland sell and we told them about our wax wraps that we made. The bought wraps are great but they're quite expensive whereas our home-made ones only cost about 75p to make. Someone told us that they use old margarine tubs and they have some that they remember their mum using when they were a child. Lots of people talked about switching to shampoo bars and going back to solid soap and they had some top tips for buying them. There's a small independent shop on the shambles and the friendly soap company in Hebden Bridge who do mail order and wrap t...
Read more