Plastic-free: How are you doing with that?

Dear users, dear authors,
are you trying to live or shop plastic-free, or is that not really a priority for you right now?

Oh, before the pandemic, we were doing just fine with that.

Bowls at the butcher’s,
cloth bags at the greengrocer’s and the bakery, and at the market.
Shopping at the zero-waste store

Since the pandemic, our butcher and baker no longer accept bowls or bags.

In the meantime, we’ve adjusted a bit—we bake our own bread now. The Italian vendor at the market is more than happy to take the bowls I bring.

Vegetables aren’t a problem; both the market and the supermarket let you bring your own bag. 

Since there are many interesting websites online that offer good tips for treating our environment better, quite a few things have changed over the past year:

Many packaging bags are reused as trash bags before they’re finally thrown away.

Cleaning products come in dissolvable tabs

We carbonate our water ourselves, or we buy drinks in glass (returnable) bottles.

Gift bags are sewn from old tablecloths and fabric scraps.

Clothes are bought second-hand and worn for a long time. Many items are mended before they end up in the donation bag. And I check the label to see what material the garment is made of.

We’ve noticed that the amount of waste ending up in our yellow bin each month is gradually decreasing. 

If it meant going completely plastic-free, I wouldn’t go along with that, because I’d have to throw out all my machines, and there’s no way I’m doing that. Otherwise, in everyday life I try to avoid plastic wherever possible; I’ve even sewn bags for my vegetables and so on from old curtains and leftover laundry bags.

Best regards, Inge

Back then, we always shopped at the bakery with cloth bags. The reason was different, though: they didn’t have paper bags.

That was quite a while ago.

We get our groceries from our organic grocery store, and they only provide paper bags—or they pack our items directly into our own containers. I bake my own bread and rolls, and I also make my own yogurt and almond milk. The ingredients for those are stored in glass jars. And when I go shopping at the market or at the farm, it’s not an issue either.

I’m cutting back on plastic more and more. I haven’t needed plastic shopping bags for a long time now—I have my own bags and baskets.

The only downside is that some items delivered online are wrapped in too much plastic—printer cartridges, for example.

Our yellow recycling bin is almost empty, and so is the regular trash can. Most of our waste is compostable, and that goes first into the bokashi bucket and then into the garden. 

I do try to avoid plastic from time to time, but it doesn’t always work out. It starts with grocery shopping. For example, when I buy apples here, they come in these cardboard containers, with another layer of plastic wrap around them. For a short while, they were sold without the plastic wrap, which I thought was more eco-friendly.
When we go shopping, we always bring our own washable bags so we don’t need plastic bags.
They even have trash bags here for organic waste that decompose—very practical.

Even though I’m really trying, I just can’t avoid plastic entirely… There are a lot of products I simply don’t buy anymore because they’re wrapped in too much plastic… Luckily, we have a weekly farmers’ market here—I give the vendor at the produce stand my basket, and she fills it up for me, so I end up with absolutely zero plastic—that’s really great! Yesterday I also tried to remove everything made of plastic from my garden and put it in storage for now… Instead of throwing it away right away… The garden looks even more beautiful without the plastic… We used to manage just fine without plastic—so what else would we need to change? I definitely think the industry has to get on board… that would be the most important starting point…

Industry and trade need to pull together.