Before I started
I’ve always considered myself fairly eco-friendly and sustainable, so this year I decided to sign up for Plastic Free July as a bit of a motivator to see what else I could learn. Though to be honest I thought I was already crushing it in my eco-warrior status and I could just use the month of July to brag a bit about how awesome I already am. Yes, I was already making an effort and probably doing a little more than some people, but I had no idea how much single use plastic I was really using in my day to day life. There are so many ways to reduce plastic (and waste in general) so for this post I’ve decided to focus on the bathroom and grocery store waste that I managed to reduce during Plastic Free July.
The Plastic Free Bathroom
I chose the first few days of the month to make some changes to my bathroom supplies. I’d already switched to bar soap earlier in the year because apart from it being a no-brainer, I’ve actually always kinda preferred bar soap. I switched to shower gel type soap because it was convenient to travel with and I didn’t have a soap holder in the bathroom. Who knows what kind of logic I was using there! Though, if I’ll be honest, I do still have a small container that I can use for shower gel if I need to travel, but I’ll usually fill it from someone else’s larger bottle. I got given a 60ml bottle of shower gel for my birthday as part of a gift set – I took it away with me for 4 weeks and I didn’t quite finish it, so I can confidently say that I’m not a heavy product user. I’m hoping to find a good solution for travelling with soap bars so keep an eye out for that update!
My biggest changes in the bathroom were:
- Changing to Ethique face bars and shampoo bars.
- Trying out the bamboo toothbrush from Go Bamboo.
- Making the switch the compostable bamboo floss.
Changes that I’d already made and continued with were:
- Tree free TP from Smartass toilet paper.
- Bamboo cotton buds from Go Bamboo.
- Using bar soap instead of shower gel.
Check out my blog post here for my story on Bathroom Week and the changes that I made following the inspiration of Plastic Free July.
Plastic Free Food
This is definitely the area that I needed the most inspiration for and one that I think is going to be an ongoing challenge and adventure to find products that have less plastic packaging. We are so lucky that we now have a dedicated plastic free store in Auckland. Good For store makes packaging free shopping so easy, which is the important thing here. To make changes that will stick, it needs to be easy to do. We took the few bottles that we had for our first visit and then used the paper bags for what we didn’t have enough bottles for. By the time we visited again we’d collected some more bottles and took the paper bags that we’d used on our last trip and used those again.
My discoveries for the month were great and unfortunately I couldn’t action everything that I found out about but here are the changes that I did manage for Plastic Free July:
- I made some simple grocery swaps for items in glass jars instead of plastic, i.e. Olive oil, mayonnaise, and I tried coconut yoghurt instead of regular yogurt because it was all that I could find in glass rather than plastic!
- I’ve got on board with using honey wrap. Though since purchasing it I’ve discovered that we don’t actually wrap a lot of our dishes, we usually transfer things to containers to store when we need to. The honey wrap has been great for keeping the end of our cheese fresh though!
- Even the cats are getting involved in my plastic free quest and I’m no longer buying their soft food in plastic sachets. Soon I’m going to start looking into what I can make for them myself.
- With supplies from the Good For store, I made my own nutty cereal for breakfast – another great addition to my plastic free diet. The recipe was provided by my mum and awesome nutrition coach.
- We went to the French market at La Cigale in Parnell and we picked up some great finds like loose lettuce in a brown paper bag and ginormous broccoli with enough leaves and stalk to make an impressive soup!
- I made cashew milk!! It was so easy and it’s so yummy – I’m really excited to keep experimenting with this!
- I switched to cans of soft drink rather than plastic bottles. I find it created less waste as they didn’t go flat, plus aluminium can be recycled indefinitely.
Some things that we were already doing and either improved on or simply continued with are:
- I used my reusable produce bags from Rethink – I’ve had these for a few years already and I love them.
- Where items needed to be stored in the fridge in plastic bags to keep them fresh, I used bags that we already had in the cupboard. When I’m finished with them they’ll get washed and reused again.
- I take existing plastic produce bags to the store. I live with my partner and a flatmate and despite my best attempts we often end up with a few of these at home so I do my best to always take them to the store with me to reuse until they can’t be used any more and then I make sure they’re clean and put them in the plastic recycling bin.
Takeaway food was a big challenge and quite a source of anxiety for me. I’ve been mentally preparing a list of places where I can get food on the run that fits with my values. Here are my top four. I’d love to hear other recommendations if you have any:
- Revive Cafe – vegetarian only meals and they compost all of their waste.
- Zambrero – fresh, healthy Mexican food. Their packaging is compostable and they do a “plate 4 a plate” where for every burrito or bowl purchased, they donate a meal to someone in need.
- Burger Fuel – one of the best burger places around. You’ll notice that most of their packaging can go in the compost, and they only serve drinks in glass bottles which is a great product to recycle. It’s definitely a win for me.
- LJ’s Seafood – they serve their meals up in compostable packaging and they claim to get their seafood from sustainable sources, and what’s more Kiwi than fish and chips?
Overall I think I made some good changes and I’m definitely a lot more aware of what I’m buying from the grocery store and how things are packaged. I’ll continue to seek better options that reduce plastic waste and leave less of a footprint on our planet. An added benefit of Plastic Free July is that I ate a whole lot less processed food than I usually would.
