By Sheila Bayliss on behalf of SLH
Like many people, we’ve made a concerted effort in recent years to reduce the amount of plastic that we buy as a household. Here are 10 simple ways we’ve been able to do that, by shopping in our local area.
Bread
We’ve recently dusted off the bread-maker. But we also buy bread from Martin’s Bakery, Bernie’s, or Blue Corn – packed in our own cloth bag, or one of their paper bags.
Milk
Like many, we’ve gone back to glass bottles from the good old milkman. Lots of people in our area also use Creamline Dairies
Fruit & veg
Our local supermarkets and Unwins greengrocers do sell some produce loose. We’ve joined a veg box delivery scheme who use minimal plastic (we use Foodlife Organic). You can even grow your own – very much a work-in-progress in our garden!
Pasta & dried goods
Being able to scoop pasta, rice, pulses and oats into our own tubs has freed us from the plastic-wrapped stuff – we couldn’t do without our weekly trip to The Good Life Heatons, our local haven for all things low-waste.
Butter & Cheese
It took me a while to find butter in recyclable packaging. So I was happy to discover Calon Wen butter in a compostable wrapper, stocked by Blue Corn.
Bernie’s sometimes has cheese that you buy by weight and put into your own tub.
Fish
At the Easy Fish Co, I ask them to double-wrap our fish in paper so we can skip the plastic bag, or to fill our own tub with shrimp to avoid a disposable.
Biscuits, crackers & snacks
Instead of buying these, we now bake our own. Early on in my own journey with this, I was inspired by recipes from Plastic Free Chef. I’ve discovered that even for a novice baker like me, things like crackers and flapjacks are actually really quick & easy to make.
Cleaning products
Not entirely plastic-free, but if you always refill, it’s a lot less plastic. Refills for eco-friendly cleaning products are available at Blaggs Hardware, Blue Corn and The Good Life Heatons.
Haircare & beauty
It’s The Good Life Heatons to the rescue again, with a range of solid shampoo and conditioner bars, plus compostable dental floss and face cream in glass jars (even an eye cream, which I struggled to find elsewhere). They even stock refills for hand sanitiser.
Cleaning sponges
Blaggs Hardware sell sponges that aren’t packaged in plastic, and The Good Life Heatons even stock some that are compostable at the end of their useful life.
Where we live, we are so lucky that we can buy plastic-free alternatives, and tick the ‘shop local’ box at the same time.