40 Day Plastic-Free Challenge: Day Four

40 Day Plastic-Free Challenge Day Four

Dinner's in the oven and just sitting down after a productive day to watch The Six Nations.  Ooo another England try as I type. Woo Hoo!

Anyway, back to the task in hand. I was up early for a Saturday at 7am I tell you, with jobs to do buzzing round in my head - bake fresh bread for the day, go fruit & veg shopping and finish off some pyjama shorties for my daughter (which I may feature later in this challenge when discussing second hand/thrift shopping - a favourite hobby of mine). 

I wanted to feature fresh produce shopping today as a big problem area when it comes to plastic packaging. I love to bake, cook from scratch and eat quite a few vegetarian dishes when we can therefore we buy lots of fresh fruit & veg. With at recent move to shopping at Aldi's, where there are hardly any loose fruit & veg on sale, it was getting very noticeable how many plastic trays and wrappers were going in the bin. I even wrote to them a while back to ask what there plans were but no luck.

My first move today was to go back to Morrisons where they offer the paper produce bags instead of the flimsy plastic ones or pre-packaged products. So, armed with my shopping list we brought the items below which came to just below £9. 

There were no loose cherry tomatoes and only one type of orange sold without packaging. All the more reason to shop seasonally when you can. Missing my allotment even more now but the one I had was way too big for me to tackle on my own and it usually involved weeding, weeding and more weeding so wasn't very enjoyable. I am going to look at incorporating growing some fruit and veg into our tiny garden this Spring especially berries and salad items.

I have a couple of other avenues to explore when shopping for fruit and veg - the local town market, a greengrocers a mile away or farmer's markets. Maybe I will get to know a local vendor and strike up a rapport and get to know what's good and when. 

When I was in Morrison's today I enquired at the Deli about buying items to put in my containers that I had brought with me but was told that that this service was only available at the fishmonger's and butcher's. Not sure why it should be any different. The cheese at the Deli counter was all wrapped up in large drums and looked like they could only be purchased as such and not by desired weight. As for the sliced ham surely they could have put that in my container?  But when I next need some chicken, sausages or gammon I'll try again at the butcher's with my tubs and let you know how it went. 

Now that I am doing more bread baking I searched out the baking isle and found yeast sold in a small metal container which I can pop in the recycling bin when done rather than throw away the little sachets. I also checked out the butter packaging which says it is made of foil and is widely recyclable. Doesn't look or feel like foil so may need to check further. Stocked up on maple syrup and honey (in glass jars) ready for some snack making later on which I aim to use instead of all the individual cereal bars we buy.

Tomorrow is day 5 of my challenge and sees us going to the cinema! We will have to avoid the packets of sweets, plastic bottles and fizzy drink cups. My husband did mention that the popcorn and pick'n'mix comes in paper packaging so not all doom and gloom. Or I could sneak in some healthy snacks to munch on.....

Oh and I want to check out some local Deli shops too for cheese. If Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson can frequent them and get paper wrapped products then surely I can too.......